Scrapper's Dream
U
pon a long rest, Scrapper found himself
restless. A nightmare more real than anything
he had seen before. It was like a memory, a
distant memory. He could feel, see, hear, and
touch. But like a distant memory, it was
shrouded in a strange, amorphous, darkness.
He Awoke...
Scrapper woke to the sound of an evil, hideous, wailing, in the
distance. He struggled to open his crusted, lethargic, eyes. He
felt tired, and hungry. A loud groaning of something massive
dragging across the stone floor drew him from his state and
forced open his eyes. A gargantuan door made of skulls,
closing on the other side of the room.
He realized then that he was looking through the bars of a
cage. He felt weak and struggled to lean forward, his head
heavy against the stone wall behind him. "Where am I?" his
course, dry, throat, muttered. Grey-green haze clung to the
floor of this large, dark, room. He scanned to his left and
Scrapper gasped...
"No," he cried. "No, no, no!" he grew louder. Whispers
sounded off across the room and Scrapper hushed himself.
He was not alone, in more than one sense. For sharing the
cage with Scrapper were the scrawny, starved, rotted, bodies
of his dear friends and party. He had no time to cling or hope,
for his solitude was disturbed.
The thumping of a heavy peg leg approached, and the
chattering of strung bones on the neck of a hideous, grey, hag.
"Oh look, Widow Groat, it's awake!" She clutched a skin-
sewn pouch at her waist, and from the ethereal appeared
another hag. She had tarnished gold coins covering here eyes
and thousands of ants crawling between her mouth and her
ears and her porous skin. She carried an iron ring with eight
keys. "How cute," she said, "he's confused." Then another
appeard, this with a squirming leather sack covering her
head. "What's all the fuss, sisters?"
"It's awake!"
"Awake?"
"Awake!" said Widow Groat, the second hag. "You ought to
feed it, then, Baggy Nanna..." The third hag reached into her
pockets and drew from within three fingers. The bag over her
head shifted, a slithering sound came from within, and she
threw the fingers into the cage. "Peggy Deadbells, ought we
consecrate the poor thing?"
The first had smiled and pulled from her bag a large metal
clamp which looked much like a helm. "Oh, yes-" And then
there was a crack of thunder and all three hags stopped and
turned around. Circumvented by fire and and by skulls which
seemed to appear and disappear in rapid succession through
a mist at his ankles, a skeletal mage appeared. He held in one
hand a tall, black, staff. In the other hovered a black orb,
through which it seemed no light touched, nor appeared.
From his neck hung a necklace of a green devil face that
appeared to be screaming in terror. Where his eyes ought to
be sat pinpricks of hateful light; unmoving, and unflinching.
"My lord," the three hags said in unison. The arch-lich did
not respond. "Seven adventurers have entered the tomb, my
lord," Peggy Deadbells said. "They have almost arrived to the
cradle, my lord," said Widow Groat. "They traverse the gears
of hate as we speak," Baggy Nanna concluded.
The arch-liche's jaw grinned slightly, and whispered, "Why
did you not tell me sooner we had guests...? Or better, why
not Whithers?" The hushed whisper seemed to boom and
shake through the chamber.
"Whithers is dead..."
"Worry not, Sewn Sisters," he chattered, "Whithers will be
back soon, and until then, we shall have our fun... What kind
of people have entered my realm forgotten?" He turned and
drifted carelessly away.
"Small folk," a hag said. "We have one of them here, took
him at Dangwaru on the Snout of Omgar. They incited a
small war beyond the Tomb. While the war for the Cubes
rages above, they seek to destroy your Soulmonger here."
"Good," the arch-lich whispered harshly, "Good... I suspect
the 'seven' will make these fools their allies. 'Trickster Gods'
indeed... They only trick themselves." Scrapper felt hate and
malice radiate off the ancient man as Acererak, the arch-lich,
cackled gleefully to himself. "Nothing stops my little project,
nothing kills my child."
"But sir-" Widow Groat started, but Acererak turned over
his shoulder and she stopped, dropped to her knees, and
cowered in fear. "... I only mean to say, my lord," she stuttered,
"that with all your power, all your might, why not seek
divinity?"
There was a pause, uncomfortable, even for Scrapper, who
nervously and fearfully remained silent. "Divinity," Acererak
said ponderously. "Why become a god when you can make
one?" He chuckled, and then continued: "I have business on
another plane." In a cloud of wrathful smoke, Acererak
disappeared. The Sewn Sisters knew the arch-liche's orders
without having to receive them.
"Stop them, we must," Baggy Nanna muttered from her
bag. "Before they can reach the Skeleton Gate," continued
Peggy Deadbells. Widow Groat picked up the metal helm
that had been dropped to the floor. She looked at Scrapper
with gleeful malintent. "So let us give them the key..."
And then Scrapper awoke, truly. He was with his friends,
alive and well. A flying monkey picked at his hair and a shield
guardian stood watch. He wouldn't tell the others of this
vision for some time. The party encountered extra-planar
entities, fought through the Gears of Hate, Nick lost his gear,
and gained a wish in that strange machine. But somehow the
long descending staircase that stood before them was most
terrifying. He told everyone what he had seen. He wasn't
quite sure what to make of it, but before these ominous stairs
he presented his omen to them.
Death.
Cool, ancient, undisturbed, air, blew up from the depths and
darkness. With fear lingering in their minds and hearts, the
little folk made their descent. They had freed those haunted
by the myths of Dangwaru, befriended native goblins,
conquered hoards of undead frost giants, and the broad
jungle behind them. What danger now lies below?