INTERACTIVE STORY

[DavidNewton]

[[Lord Fear joined Treguard? ...Lord Fear joined Treguard. This... is... genius.]]

[Malefact]

[[It is getting a bit interesting, isn't it?  :)
  Being our own story, anything can happen - so we might as well let it!]]

[Emii]

[It's not the first time - Lord Fear joined Treguard in my fic HOWEVER!!! The way this fic has gone is PURE GENIUS, GUYS!)

[Malefact]

[Oh! Sorry - I didn't mean to plagiarise. I've been caught out - I haven't had a chance to read that one yet!]

Hands reached into his pocket and pulled out a small red stone that glowed so brightly it looked orange. He placed it in his catapult and targeted them.
"Who shall I do first, then?" he sneered. After a moment's thought, he had made his mind up.
"Bye-bye, your Lordships!" he cried and pulled the catapult back, ready to fire.
"Who gave him that damned thing?" hissed Treguard at Fear.
"I did, Treguard," spat Fear. They looked at each other. Fear had been drained of all his powers. Perhaps the principal was extended....

Hands fired.

[Emii]

The catapult swung forwards, but got wrapped around itself, leaving the stone to fall to the floor. Hands swore loudly.
"Gimme one minute, yer Lordship..." He bent down to retrieve it, his fingers closing over its brightness before any of them could get there first...

[Malefact]

Mellisandre saw her chance. Still tied up, she lunged herself towards Hands with all her strength. Caught off guard, Hands fell to the ground. Mellisandre pinned on top of him. He punched her and she cried out and rolled to the side. Hands scrambled to his feet but Treguard had run over. He punched hands twice and he was laid out on the floor, moaning.

"Well done, Master!" cried Pickle, impressed. Everyone clapped.
"Quite the boxer, aren't we?" teased Fear. Treguard untied Mellisandre.
"Oh, thankyou, Dungeon Master," she gasped. Looking around, she was suddenly confused.
"What's going on?" she asked.

[Emii]

She looked at Treguard. "And where's the Helmet of Justice?"

[Malefact]

[D'oh! I'm wracking my brains about this one!]

"A new declaration from the Powers that Be," replied Treguard. "The Helmet is obsolete now."

[Spoo]

"If that is the case" snapped Lord Fear, "then why have you been traipsing across half of the dungeon wearing the accursed thing?"

Treguard looked around as if he'd lost something.

"My good assistants were really looking forward to taking on the role of my advisors, I didn't want to disappoint them."

Lord Fear kicked the fallen Sylvester Hands, who rolled over and moaned loudly.

"And when, exactly, did you remove the helmet? You were certainly wearing it a moment ago, and I don't see it lying around here anywhere."

For a brief moment, Treguard looked uncertain. For another brief moment he looked puzzled, perplexed, and then confused, before finally settling on a look of plain bewilderment.

"I don't seem to remember."


Meanwhile, Pickle, Majida and Kully found themselves staring at where an image of the dungeon used to be.

[[The damn filter changed "My" and "assistants" into "I disagreeistants" because the stupid thing thought I was referring to my posterior, so I inserted a suitable adjective ]]

[DavidNewton]

[[The filter is a little extreme. I'm all for preventing bad language on the forum, but it's pretty easy for people to get around it anyway, and it only seems to catch legitimate words by mistake. Is it possible for it to be more lenient?

Don't want to take this off topic, though.]]

[Malefact]

[I've noticed that the principal is not extended to thread titles!]

[Malefact]

Pickle, Majida and Kully were trying to figure out what was going on when a huge thud came from the entrance opposite the dungeon door.
"What was that?" cried Pickle, as alert as a fox. Another thud came, coupled with manical, gutteral laughter. Kully bravely went to investigate. Majida cowered.
"Thees ees scary! Ees has never happened before!" she cried. Kully came running back.
"Someone's trying to get in!" she shouted. Another thud came. The laughter got louder.
"The door's breaking off!" screamed Pickle.
"We have to get out of here!" cried Kully.
"Where do we go?" warbled Majida.
"There's only one escape," murmered Pickle, gazing at the Dungeon Door.
"You don't mean...?" gasped Majida.
"Yes, Majida," said Pickle, "into the Dungeon."

Another huge thud came and the laughter was almost on top of them. The door was almost off its hinges and would not withstand another attack. Majida, Pickle and Kully ran through the dungeon door just as the other entrance was blasted open.

After a while the dust settled. Standing in the centre of the ante-chamber stood a tall, deathly figure, dressed in black. He strode over to the dysfunctional view-screen. With a wave of his hand he conjured up an image of Treguard and crew.

They all looked up when the voice came. Treguard went white in the face.

"Welcome to Mogdred's Dungeon," he boomed, and broke out into peals of hideous laughter.

[Now we're REALLY rolling!]

[Emii]

"Oh for my sake - who let that in?" sneered Fear. Treguard shot him a look that words can't describe, and Lord Fear fell silent except for his loud, irritated breathing.
"Look upon Mogdred and QUAIL!" roared Mogdred, and laughed his gutteral laugh again. Fear sighed.
"Gods! He's worse than ME!" Treguard shot him another look, and this time Fear got the picture. Mellisandre and Motely were cowering in each other's arms.
"Treguard!" she squeaked. "What do we do?"
"Gather all our equipment and bodies and move on as quickly as possible! We've no time to lose! It will be harder for him to locate us in level 2!"
"On the contrary, Dungeon Master." Snarled Mogdred. "I should think, thanks to your badly guarded castle and convenient viewing screen, I can tell exactly where you are in a matter of about...oh...lets say...15 minutes of you getting there. That should give you time to panic and me to have a small amount of fun."
Treguard was angry. "And what can you do, exactly? This is all an illusion! Nothing in here can do us harm that will extend to the outside world."
"That's where you are wrong, Dungeon Master."
A sheet of light split open before them, and dulled into a magical viewing screen. It showed Mogdred in the antechamber, hands on hips and grinning at them.
"Are you missing something, Treguard?"
"No, I...oh dear." Treguard realised the peril they were in. Mogdred held up the Helmet of Justice.
"This is the source of your protection whilst you are in the dungeons, Treguard. Without it, as long as you know everything is an illusion, you have no problems. Now here this - the Helm is in my hands and I may manipulate it as I please...I can rid the dungeons of illusion! Live in peril, dungeon dwellers, for what is left of your time..."
With a loud guffaw Mogdred disappeared with the screen. Lord Fear turned to Treguard angrily.
"NOW LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"

In the level one clue room, Pickle, Kully and Majida stared around the room. It seemed much bigger from the inside.

[Malefact]

"I hate this," whispered Pickle, gazing at the table (covered with a fresh batch of objects). "I'd much rather be in the forest."
"Shut your mouth and let's exameeen table!" hissed Majida. The three moved up to it.

Meanwhile, Treguard and crew had sent Hands on his way and proceeded on; stumbled into a set of dwarf tunnels. As there were so many of them, things were rather crouded. It didn't help when ANOTHER band of people, moving in the opposite direction, strode straight into them. Treguard, who was in front, bore the brunt of it, and winced.
"Watch where you're going!" he cried.
"I'm so sorry," replied Brother Mace, "my somewhat rounded personage is not particularly suited to this degree of cameraderie!"

The other group consisted of Brother Mace, Brother Strange, Cedric the Mad Monk, Scarkill, Lissard, Marta, Romanha, Grimaldine, Hordriss, Gumboil and, right at the back, Gibbett, the elusive level two guard.

"Stop messing about in front!" screamed Cedric, who seemed even more agitated than normal.
"Patience, Cedric," boomed Strange. Mace turned back to Treguard and crew.
"I wouldn't go the way we have just come, if I were you, Dungeon Master," he said. "Something rather large is lurking back there."
"I can't STAND them things!" whimpered Cedric. "Especially when they're THAT size!"
"And one must not expend any more magic than one must," declared Hordriss.
"Nor I," said Grimaldine. "At least, not without a goodly number of Arken stones."

A peal of Mogdred's unmistakable laughter rang out in the tunnels, and the distant sound of a goblin horn rang out.
"He's caught up with us!" hissed Motley, cowering at the back of Treguard's group, hiding behind Folly, who was, in turn, trying to hide behind him.
"Who has?" asked Mace.
"Mogdred!" cried Treguard.
"Who Mog..." began Lissard.
"SHUTUP!" screamed Fear, who was beginning to feel out of his depth.
"What are you doing here, your Fearship, er, Lordship?" asked Scarkill.
"Yes, tell us what's going on, Master," hissed Lissard.
"There's no time for any of that," barked Treguard.

"There's only one thing that I can think of to buy us some time," announced Treguard.
"What?" shouted Marta. "I don't like spiders, either!"
"We must split up into groups. Mogdred won't be able to track all of us at once."
"What do we do once we get in these groups?" asked Strange.
"FIND MY DAUGHTER!" cried Hordriss, clearly distressed.

And so, everyone paired off and went off down a different tunnel, save for the one leading back to Ariadne's lair. Mogdred indeed could not track everyone at once and began to get angry.

Meanwhile, Pickle, Majida and Kully were examining the objects on the table way back in the Level One clue room.

And somewhere else, three sorceresses had decided to pool their own resources...

[Emii]

[I love it!]