“Say Your Right Words!” (Inactive)

Game Master Terquem

Fluuk whispers "Ooooh. Crafty."

One favour. So no asking for more favors Gobzilla! Tabaaac squeaks. Then he scratches his head. We came to get the right words to help Penny and friends. But... we also don't want the After to be so terrible!

Ah, well, he says with a knowing and yet sad look.

That is a concern I have heard before, many times before. Or was it simply a dream of this time played over and over again. I really can't tell anymore. You see, helping your Penny is exactly what leads to the world as it is now. Penny, sweet, Penny the wise, wants to help her village, yes that was how it always went, and in learning the right words to help her village she becomes very powerful. When she becomes very powerful, she helps another village become a great city. A great city becomes the envy of a great enemy. A great enemy invokes a great spell that traps the city. Penny spends a thousand years trying to free the city, and when she does, it leads to this.

So, how do you fix the problem that you yourselves have created a thousand times over? Time itself is a villain. He who is the lord of the realm of thought, and time, is not a patient god. We in the elemental realms have learned that he cannot be reasoned with. Once a course is set, it seems, it becomes almost unthinkable to plot it anew, yes? You cannot understand, I can see it in your eyes. What you must do, you must do. I can give you the right words to help Penny save her village, or I can give you the right words to help you stop Penny from saving her village, or I can give you the right words to help Penny, help you in stopping her from helping you to help her save her village, ahahaha. It's all been done before.

Maybe it isn't Penny's needs that you should be concerned about. Maybe it isn't the after where things are like this that needs to be undone. Maybe there was another time, another place, here or there, where things could have been different, and then a new story would be told. Maybe you need to know more about what Penny is destined to become. Maybe it is in that, that the answers lie.

"Rawr! Besides no wishing for more wishes, are there any limits to what these favors or right words can accompolish? And where can Gobzilla and friends learn more about what Penny is destined to become?"

Maybe ask Penny? Tabaaac says Penny? What is scary fire man talking about?

When Gobzilla suggest learning more about what Penny is to become, the young human girl looks frightened.

When Tabaaac confronts her directly, she balls up her fists and shouts

I don’t know what he’s talking about!

And then she tips her head down and begins to cry, All I wanted was…

The roar of a crackling fireplace drowns out the rest of her words
Illa Adekah, says

Ah hahahahaha, bwahahahaha. What she is destined to become, she is already. She is the Lich Baroness It’Dupree, the undead protector of the future city of Du’Orbna, what was once Rhandilinskenburg. In her lifetime, the one you know as Penny the Wise, becomes a master of the arcane, uses her skill and prodigious memory to learn the art of controlling the dead. She summons an army, more than a few times, from the graves of many villages here, and in other places. In time she joins a group of heroes and together they are renowned all over this world for their deeds. When she is still not yet very old, one of her closest friends will die, and she will capture that friend’s soul in a book. The book, the first of the Books of It’Dupree sets her on a course to ensure that the place she made for herself in her world does not change. Eventually she becomes a creature of undeath, a lich, but not the kind bent on the ruin of the living, no, her mind is far too powerful to be corrupted in this way. She sets her focus on maintaining her city, the city she eventually adopts as her future home. For four hundred years, from a dark dungeon below the city she pulls the strings of those who walk in the light of day, growing her city into a place of great envy. Eventually two powerful, and corrupted warlords join forces and bring down upon the city a powerful curse.

The curse was originally meant to trap the Lich baroness so that she could be cornered, destroyed, but she was not completely unprepared for the attack on her home. Using a device, something not of this world, It’Dupree, Penny the Wise, had already, many years earlier, trapped herself within a field of energy that nothing can penetrate, nothing but thought. Her enemies, unable to find her physical body, or her phylacteries, were thwarted in their plan to rid her from all existence.

More centuries pass, the city of Du’Orbna rises from the ruins of Rhandilinskenburg, and under It’Dupree’s guidance becomes a thriving, if somewhat bizarre metropolis.

But then, something happened, something that no matter how hard I look I cannot find the details of, something that began with her attempts to find a tool to break her free from her self-imposed isolation, something that breaks the very fabric of the universe itself happened, and Du’Orbna, the Tumble of the White, the Goblin Kingdoms, all of it is erased from history leaving this world a blighted landscape where only the undead machines of the necroverse roam.

As to the favor I will grant, let us say, for now, there is no limit to what the Right Words can do for you, you simply must know what it is you want to ask for, and I will do whatever is within my power to give it to you. The measure of my power is great, and I have never found a set of right words I could not bestow upon the ones willing to risk my wife’s wrath for waking me. But be quick, for she will grow angrier the longer we delay.

When he finishes he folds his arms across his chest and grins.

Penny stands with her mouth hanging wide open. After a pause of a few moments, she closes her eyes and shakes her head, and says
No, that isn’t me. I will never do those things. Why would I do those things? I just want to protect my friends and my family from the Gnolls and Kobolds. I will never command an army of, of, the dead.

Tabaaac scratches his head. Well.... Why don't we give someone else the words to help Penny's village so Penny doesn't become scary undead world destructor. He scrunches up his face. I mean I don't think Lich things do any baking and if Penny stops baking that would be not good. Tabaaac turns to Illa Adekah and explains She bakes the treats so fine! he explains helpfully.

Gemdar looks at Penny and the others, "What if we came and protected you. The big guy here could give us the words and then you wouldn't have to become a lich and end the world?" Gemdar then smiles a huge smile at her.

Fluuk slowly takes it all in. "Is there a universe where everything goes correctly? Is fate so written that there is no way around it? Surely there must be a path that doesn't lead to woe and ruin for so many."

Gobzilla nods at Fluuk's logic, "Rawr! Agreed! There must be some Right Words that give us a good ending! Rawr! How... specific do we have to be? Could some hypothetical go... gnome dru- ranger named... Bobzilla ask for words that avoid all these issues and give us an ending where everything works out ideally? You know, theoretically speaking."

She,…Bakes. Hmmm, no one has ever told me this before. It would be a shame to lose a baker, a good baker is hard to find. Now, let me think, wait, what?

The fire elemental is suddenly overwhelmed as all the goblins begin shouting suggestions at once. When he has the gist of it, he extends his hands toward all of you, palms upward and fingers spread and says,

Just slow down a moment. I think some of you are confused. You seem to think that this ending is bad. Well it is bad for some, but good for others. Asking for the right words that will guarantee a good ending for you is within reason, but I must warn you, what’s good for the bird, is bad for the worm, or in other words, you might seek a means to ensure the ending is good for you, or even not for you, but for Penny the Wise, but there will always be a chance it will be, no there is a certainty that any deviation from this world as it is now will result in a world where someone, or something is not pleased, are you prepared for those consequences. I mean, I can give you a box, with a button that when you push it you win, but someone else, someone you don’t know, will die, no, wait, I’ve done that one already, it is boring.

Then his eyebrows shoot upward, leaving his head entirely, and collide with the ceiling before falling back down and settling into place above his eyes when he hears something remarkably different.

What’s that you suggest, go with Penny and protect her, try to prevent her transformation, hmmm, that is new. Are you saying you would leave me, without asking for anything? No right words at all. That has never been done. I cannot see what that would cause, at all. Maybe Penny will follow her destiny regardless, but maybe even if she does, by not asking for any favors from me, it is possible that everything else will work out in different ways. I cannot see a future that I do not have a role in creating.

Just want to save Penny's village from gnolls and kobolds. If we do it then Penny won't have to. Do you think we can do it without help? Or maybe you can just give one of us a word that will get rid of them and so Penny can be not a part of it!

"We can do this! We have done much already!"

Gemdar shouts out, "Yes! We should do what's never been done! We're heroes after all! We'll save her village and Penny! She's a very good baker after all. I like pies."

"Rawr! Gobzilla agrees, though he wonders if wishing for the gnolls and kobolds to forever leave Penny and her village (and the Goblins and Gnomes) in peace is an option..."

"Hey we skated against those kobolds in the other world, perhaps we can use that to our advantage in talking to the kobolds. I mean, if they escaped to the other world somehow, maybe by some weird quirk of fate, they exist here in parallel as well. What if we went there and talked to the kobolds and gnolls and told them what is at stake?"

Fluuk barely knows what he is talking about, but it sounded wise.

If the problem is Penny having the words, then maybe just give the words to someone else? Like Esmerelda? Tabaaac suggests.

Bah! Goblins, you talk in circles. I grow impatient the tall fire elemental prince exclaims. Streatching his back once again, he sighs, as he raises his hands to his temples. What will it be? What is your decision, come now, my mood is not improving. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

"Rawr! One moment! Group huddle!" says Gobzilla as he grabs the three other goblins and pulls them together. "Gobzilla isn't sure if rejecting the offer is a good idea; even if we do everything in our power to stop the gnolls and kobolds from pushing Penny to the brink, then we'll likely have to shed lots of blood. And Gobzilla and friends might very well fail."

"...Rawr! If Gobzilla has to choose, then he says that we should wish for a happy ending with no or minimal suffering: one that completely avoids the end of the world and accomplishes Penny's goals without... all the gnolls and kobolds dying or something really dark happening. If someone has to suffer, then... let it be Gobzilla."

Truly a tough decision for a Neutral Good character. Refusing the wish and defending Penny to the grave still invites failure and lots of bloodshed. I guess my wish is for an optimal happy ending for the goblins and Penny that involves no (or at least minimal) suffering and completely avoids the apocalypse while also not resulting in something hilariously dark like all the gnolls and kobolds dying. Gobzilla is willing to be the token sacrifice if need be. If nothing else, it leads to a much better outcome than everyone dying.

Tabaaac raises his head to look at Penny before quickly huddling back then when Penny notices Tabaaac looking Problem is Penny right? Just ask for words to help Penny's village to be given to someone else. Someone not as... uh... aggressive as Penny. Of All of us who is least ambitious?

"Rawr! Good question. Probably not Gobzilla. Going by profession, maybe Gemdar? Out of everyone present, maybe Esmerelda?"

I used to want to know all the words.. now I just want to go home but.... It might Come Back and I will turn into a NecroLibrarian! I don't want the words!

"I think we need to just leave and do this ourselves. The great Elemental here said he doesn't know the outcome of something he has no part in and that may be the best way. It sounds like anything he takes part in will have a bad ending."

Fluuk takes it all in, but feels a lack of anything wise to add. "Perhaps it is best to leave, the story will unfold differently, perhaps not better...I..don't know...." he fusses with his very magnificent hat.

Well, what is your decision, little heroes?

"...Rawr. Looks like we aren't going to make a wish," Gobzilla announces after what feels like weeks and months of debate.

Gobzilla finds himself a bit reluctant to let this chance go. However, they did get something quite useful out of this trip. Knowledge. Not only have the Heroes learned about what causes the Bad Future in detail, but they also know how other goblins can get the Right Words in case they fail. Giving this information to the Good Chiefs will certainly ensure an easier second trip if necessary and help Penny's village.

In the end, that works for Gobzilla, The Greatest Goblin Druid.

Somewhere in the distant future, The tomb of Queen Axellexa the Excellent

Day 6? (turn 65) , impossible to tell what time of day it might

The fire elemental prince leans way back, looks at the ceiling as he rubs his hands together, throwing showers of sparks in all directions, and says

Alright then, let’s see how to make that into the right…wait, what?

It is as if something beyond the material world has taken hold of him. The prince seems to freeze in place as his words come tumbling out of his mouth

No, no, wait, that’s not something I can, wait, no, you’ve made the wrong choice. There is, there is, my love won’t be denied. My love, my lover, calls why, why, wait, NO!

His body begins to writhe, struggling against some unseen force, and his race rises. He glows hotter, brighter, and grows in size.

You cannot come to me and not take the right words. It is how it has always been. It is how it is supposed to be. If I am not an agent in the play of the words than how can I demand my reward? Where is my love? Where is my REWARD?

You begin to wonder if the prince will somehow free himself from the force that is trying to bind him, when a voice, soothing, calm, like the whisper of a breeze in a deep, dark, cave, calls out

Darling, do not struggle, for I am here

A tall woman, with very goblin like features appears behind the elemental prince.

She has dark skin and pale hair that rolls over her shoulders like flowstone. Her eyes are black as the deepest, darkest place in the world. Her body is well proportioned, and not thin. Her face is serene as she raises her hands and speaks while she slowly walks around the circle in the floor coming toward the goblins. It is obvious she is addressing

Gobzilla

I am Ur Anakalah, the daughter of Uhr, the goddess of the plane of earth, wife of Adekah, and unto this day I have been a prisoner of the right words. My curse is lifted, and now my husband will also be set free. What you have done has never been tested, nor can I say what is certain to come, but this world, the after, as I have known it is changing. You must leave, and you must leave quickly. The Necrodreagonomechadon no longer lies in the chamber of the Uhr Hanarl, the connector between the worlds of the here and after. Go there and take the golden doors that will return you to your own place and time. Good luck heroes, and go with my blessing, which shall be given to all goblin kind, for they are my first born. Do not hesitate, for the worlds that are to come will not wait to be written

She bows to all of you, and as she does her hair, drops, rolls and bounces like boulders tumbling down a cliff, and then she stands reaches a hand out toward her husband and when she takes his hand in hers, they both vanish.

The ground shakes, but it is not a violent shaking, but more of a gentle rumbling, and the vision of your surroundings wavers for a moment shifting, becoming something different.

The hole in the ground in front of you is now surrounded by a clear, see through wall of something hard but impenetrable. The ceiling above you now gives off light from several large round globes suspended from the rock. There are signs, large placards, hanging on the walls, and benches placed near the doors, which have been replaced with new doors made from materials you do not recognize.

From the doorway on your right, a young goblin woman, attractive, slim, poised, and walking gracefully emerges. She is wearing a blue suit of well-tailored cloth, buttoned all the way up to a stiff tall collar.

She is leading a group of goblins, mostly children, with a few adults, and they are all dressed as if they have just come from the Here.

The goblin tour guide stops when she sees you and exclaims, with glee

How wonderful, here we have our reenactors dressed as the great heroes, Gobzilla, Fluuk, Tabaaac, and Gemdar, escorting the great Penny the Wise, with her hand maiden, Ehzmaralduh. It was in this very chamber that the great heroes wrote the history that came to be of our people and the triumph over the curse of the right words. Please take a few moments to take any pictures you like, and take a moment to read the history of the preservation and restoration of the tomb of Axellexa the Excellent, and how Pabel Corp was able to open this attraction.

She moves to stand close to Tabaac, Fluuk, Gemdar and Gobzilla and whispers.

You aren’t supposed to be here for another fifteen minutes. We have the light show to get through first, but since you are here, let them get a few photos, I’ll delay the next part of the tour for a little while.

She then takes a small black box from out of a concealed place under her jacket , and speaks into it quietly

Rhonda, this Janet, please hold up the next tour in the shambler’s cave for about ten minutes if you can, we have a little miss cue here in the elemental chamber.

As you stand there, taking in the altered reality that you now inhabit, you feel yourself growing, changing, something strange is happening.

All of you receive a permanent increase of +2, to three ability scores of your choice, and receive enough experience points to take you to 4th level

Fluuk tries to take it all in. "Wow" he mumbles to himself, and then while posing for photos with the others and with his ape Klobber, he mingles with the tour.

Gemdar smiles and then says to the others, "We don't have time to hang around. Let's get out of here."

Time is not on their side, and the heroes quickly realize they must get moving, and find that golden doorway that will take them home.

Politely making their way back to the doorway, at least the place where they remember the doorway was, that will lead them to the water chamber, the heroes press on a panel shaped like a door, and one by one file out of this area.

As they pass into the room where the twin water elementals had explained the ritual of the bowls, they now see two large statues of the young elemental twins, holding hands and smiling.

Suddenly, another door, to the parties left, opens in the wall, and a group of heroes comes walking out, single file. They are dressed in similar heroic clothing, and one of them even has a very tall and magnificent hat. This new group of heroes even includes a real dinosaur and ape which resemble Klobber and Gaia.

The new group takes no particular notice of the heroes, simply walking by them single file, with friendly smiles on their faces.

As Gaia approaches her counterpart the two lower their heads and snarl at each other, circle each other once, claw at the floor, and then move away from each other, always looking back.

As Klobber passes his counterpart, the two great apes exchange a High Five without even looking each other in the eye.

The exchange is brief and the heroes press on, coming to the door that leads to where they had seen the great undead/mechanical/dragon like beast sleeping on the floor.

Passing through the door they now find this room is empty, and the southern part of the room has been filled with long rows of seats, and a large white wall stands in front of the seats. There is a door on the far wall with the word

*EXIT*

In Goblin written above it, while on the left, at the back end of the room is a pair od double doors which glow in a soft golden hue.

Gemdar points to the glowing gold double doors, "It looks like that's our way home. Let's get going." He then heads for the doors.

"Rawr! Gobzilla agrees!" the Greatest Goblin Druid says as he and Gaia eagerly follow Gemdar out the Exit.

Fluuk looks back at the way they came, and hesitates, biting his lower lip, a part of him pulls him to stay, to try and infiltrate the tour and sneak out with them. He knows it is impossible, but his fascination with the strange world draws him like a moth to the flame. Sighing sadly he falls in line and follows the others.

Tabaaac scribbles down everything he sees in a small notebook. Wrote the history? Hah I need to go home and get started. Find some REALLY right Words the little bard chortles.

Rushing through the golden doors, the party is temporarily disoriented, as if they have entered into a dark, mysterious tunnel where all sense of direction, time, and space, are lost.

Suddenly the world comes into focus around you and you find that you are standing in front of the doors to the Mysterious Dungeon, which is on the north side of the river at the bottom of the gorge. You see the debris that still remains of the Kobold encampment that was here the very first time you sought to gain access to the Mysterious Dungeon. It seems as if it is late afternoon, and that you have arrived back here at a time just moments after you entered the Mysterious Dungeon on your way to the Here.

"Well, it looks like we're back home. Why don't we rest here for the night and set off for Penny's in the morning? There should be plenty of stuff here for us to set up a good camp and fire and I can make us some yummy dinner."

"Rawr! Gobzilla agrees. It feels like he and his friends haven't rested in over a year!"

Tabaaac Yawns Yeah, Tabaaac needs some shuteye. I call last watch! and the little goblin lies down and stars snoring right away.

It is quite easy to find enough broken wall pieces here, from the Kobold’s attempts to establish a fort, to start a small fire. The party of Goblins, with Penny and Ehzmaralduh, settle down as the long shadows of late afternoon slowly meld into the darkness of night.

Penny is moody, sits off alone by herself, and refuses to engage in conversation with anyone, always barking out the same thing whenever anyone tries to talk to her.

We accomplished nothing. I want to go home.

The party rests for the night and nothing ventures up the slope toward the entrance. It is quiet, the stars are bright over the gorge. You wake in the morning to a cacophony of sounds from the nearby jungle

Ah... what's.. going on?

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (15) + 8 = 23

These sounds are scary!

Gemdar approaches Penny and tells her, "We know that if you got the right words things would end badly... eventually. We are going to go with you and help save your village. Isn't that a good thing? We save you and your village and the world?"

Well, wake the others, and let's return to our homes and report what we have accomplished

Fluuk yawns and rubs his eyes, "Whats all the racket?"

As the rest of the group rises, groggy from what was most likely the first sleep they had had in a very long time, or at least since the day before yesterday, the sounds of jungle grow in intensity. The morning sun crests over the rim of the canyon bringing warmth and rays of golden light that reflect a brilliant sheen off the glossy leaves of the many ferns and trees that grow in abundance along the path of the river as it heads north away from the tumble of the white.

It is, at first, a peculiar sound. Bird calls, and the howls of small mammalian tree dwellers mingle with occasional grunts and roars from greater sized beasts hiding throughout the jungle, and behind all this the calming sound of the splash of water as the river dances over rocks, gurgles into shallow pools, and then escapes once again onto another pile of noisy rocks.

But it is not so unfamiliar after all. It is just the common noises of the valley floor, as it has always been, and now might always be. After the strange sounds of the Here, with the bizarre humans and their going to and fro from one small merchant to another, to the ear assaulting throng of the heavy music blasting from the walls at the Skazer Tag challenge arena, to the soul defeating drone of the After, it seems like it has been a year since any of the Goblins heard these familiar sounds, and moment by moment they begin to feel their hearts lifted by this rowdy, tumultuous rolling of sounds of vibrant life in all its glory.

It doesn’t seem to take very long for the sounds to fade in their minds as the small band of heroes, friends though all and all, as they begin to collect their belongings, chatting about what was, and what will come to be, among themselves, arguing now and then over the minor, or often major details of the adventure, and their good nature and indomitable spirits eventually wear the frown from Penny’s face.

The young girl cannot help but smile as she listens to Fluuk when he talks about finding a way back to the bright future they found as he rights his magnificent hat, or when Gemdar stares intently at Klobber, as if he isn’t sure he has returned with the same friend he left with, or when Gobzilla takes a moment to go over Gaia with a careful eye to the simple beast's wellbeing, and finally when she catches Tabaaac shifting a handful of parchment pieces, desperately trying to organize his notes into a cohesive narrative.

They are fine. She realizes. Fine with the results, fine with their successes, fine with their adventure, and even though she knows that she does not have the answers she imagined she would find, Penny feels, deep in her heart, that as long as the goblins remain her friends, she will be, when all is said and done, fine as well.

The End