Illumination: Torchlight. Visibility shown on map.

This scene was originally written within Google Wave. The scene has been transcribed here for completeness, and has been edited where required.

The original Wave is now lost with the demise of Google Wave, but the PDF extract of that original scene is provided here.

Tradden woke with Khalin’s scream and had to rub his eyes more than once to understand what was happening. His friend seemed to be almost completely engulfed by this monstrosity, and hitting it and avoiding Khalin would be difficult.

His face stayed in a fixed status of ‘What the…’, but his hands were fast becoming used to having to act faster than his brain. They scrambled about to get a proper grip on his blades, and went to work.

Suddenly catching up, Tradden’s brain caused his mouth to say: ‘Fear not, Master Dwarf — I will have you cut out of this mess in but a few seconds!’

He struck with his frost sword, Narcissus, looking for a clean slice that would start to free the dwarf. This was tricky looking, but it was just slime — hardly the kind of thing to get worried about.

As Khalin struggled against the slime its acid stung him again.

Somewhere smouldering in Khalin’s mind behind the shock of the sudden ’attack’ of the slime creature was an increasing incredulity at this mad continent — an ongoing internal debate about whether the hardy folk of Blackengorge were defiantly brave or just plain pigheaded in establishing a foothold in this gods-forsaken place. What in Moradin’s name would be next?

But to the fore was a sheer panic as the clinging, clawing ooze threatened to choke the life from the warlord. If he could once more invoke the flames from the magical bracers on his forearms he might be able to repel the foul substance. For now he shuffled out his dagger and frantically tried to cut through the slime…

Struggling, he managed to pull himself free.

‘Now you’ll get a taste of me!’ he roared, drawing his warhammer.

As had been the case at other times, Tradden’s thoughts about this insane continent mirrored his friend’s, although they were not to know this at the time.

Things were going from bad to… badder! Damaging the blobbish monstrosity was clearly required, but doing so was problematic it seemed. The young fighter looked around quickly as he considered his next steps.

Tradden couldn’t fathom the green slimy substance’s weaknesses, though.

The focus had to be on Khalin — the brave dwarf had taken some horrific hits, and would be unconscious in seconds if he didn’t act.

Tradden reached into the slime to try to pull out his friend, allowing Khalin purchase against the slime.

Tradden could see that his friend was weak, and so pushed in both arms to attempt to wipe away the slime nearest the worst of the acidic attacks.

As Khalin struggled against the slime its acid stung him again.

Khalin continued to fight, but this was a foe that would not be intimidated by war cries, would not be outwitted by a battle strategy, simply an implacable and creeping menace. Still, the dwarf steeled himself against the pain again.

‘I’ve dispatched the dead themselves this night with flame and wrath! I will not fall to an overgrown slug!’ roared the dwarf again.

This time the warlord swung his hammer, hoping the impact and the sudden whip of his arm might weaken the thing.

The quick blow once again stung himself almost as much as the ‘creature’ it seemed, but might at least distract it for his comrade to strike.

As the blow struck Khalin punched out with his other arm, freeing himself once more with a gasp.

Now that Khalin was free, and looking a little more hearty, the time for reckless abandon was again nigh. That suited Tradden just fine, who began displaying fine melee footwork, hopping around taunting the green slime, first feinting with his longsword and catching a glancing blow, then striking with a swift stab, then once again bringing the frost sword to bear.

‘Three fine strikes, the likes of which you will not see again!’ Tradden was getting carried away, and he suddenly realised this. ‘Erm… because you are a blob. But the point still stands!’ he continued, although by his final outburst he sounded like he didn’t really believe it himself. ‘Yah, har.’

While Tradden attempted to taunt the thing — Could it even hear his shouts? thought Khalin — it could certainly see them somehow though — the dwarf quickly grabbed a torch from the near wall and lashed at the slime with it, hoping to at the least ward the beastly slick away — perhaps it feared flames?

Before following up with his trusty warhammer…

Healing Surges

Healing Surges are applied.

[Khalin spends ? healing surges (? left) to get to 31/31 hp]

[Tradden spends 0 healing surges (? left) to get to 32/32 hp]

Encounter Powers

All encounter powers are recharged.

Milestones

Milestone achieved.

1 Action Point awarded.

Experience

Experience awarded.

[Khalin gains ? xp to reach ? xp]

[Tradden gains ? xp to reach ? xp]

Levelling

No characters ready to level up.

[…continued in Book #01, Chapter #02, Scene #06…]