Lord of the Magic Dice

[Maharg67]

Martina and the gobgoblins reached a large circular chamber, an amazing cylinder plunging downwards into the depths. They came out across a very wide walkway that formed a cross as it intersected with another such walkway at right angle to it in the centre of the chamber. Upwards there was only stone ceiling but downwards there were eight more levels each with its own cross of walkways. There was no visible way of getting down to them, to those lower levels. The architecture was of the same nature as that of the rest of the sewers.

 

It was an incredible discovery!

 

They stopped at the centre of the chamber, a disk shaped area of floor where the walkways met, and looked down over the fairly high safety rail. Or at least Martina did as the gobgoblins could not quite reach the top of the rail. They peered down as best they could.

 

Ipi'Ipis, another gobgoblin spoke as he was a scholar and mapper of the sewerage networks. "Only one level of sewerage tunnels, only one level of utility tunnels above them and above that the basement city and deeper basements of established buildings. Than of course the city proper. That is the city proper or so it is supposed to be. Below is forbidden mystery even to the gobgoblins. Not even crazy goblins go down there but never before have we known of even of a hint of a way down or deeper levels to go down to."

 

Yuta'Tuka, another gobgoblin, turned and pointed to the floor, to feint marks etched there as symbols. "Look there."

 

Martina turned and smiled at the gobgoblins for they had all noted what was etched feintly into the floor while many others would have probably missed it. "Yes, I saw them! The small symbols form together a greater symbol. At a glance it looks like an ancient form of magic but in truth its an ancient form of antimagic, a power that rejects magic, that protects something or some area from magic. Antimagic was developed first by those who saw all magic as evil was was later used by those who wished to protect themselves from it, to restrict magic or for other such reasons. It seems somebody, some group, wanted something below here to be cut off from magic."

 

"The use of antimagic is tricky and was difficult to use, has always been so. Another factor is that the results of antimagic and powerful magic clashing can be unpredictable. If during the magical battles above or in the city during the War of the Five any surge of powerful aggressive magic got down this far, there could have been lots of odd side effects. Perhaps there was." Martina frowned. "I am not sure how I know this, just as I am not sure I know about many things. The knowledge seems to be flowing up from somewhere in the depths of my mind but it is not complete; sometimes it begs more questions than it answers."

 

Suddenly a terrible screaming noise drifted up from below, a terrible combination of hate, deep grief and terror. Then it was gone as quickly as it had come.

 

Jata'Tooti, the gobgoblin leader, frowned. "I don't like the ruddy sound of that at all. Its not real but neither is it illusion. It was a reflection, an echo, of something real. Could this be the very centre of the strangeness that has occurred, of all of the strange events that have happened down here in the sewers? The idea feels right!"

 

Ipi'Ipis nodded. "Boss, I think you hit the goblin right on the head and it has yelped."

 

Martina arched her eyebrows. "Interesting saying! Now we have to choose. Do we try to go down there and discover more?"

 

The five gobgoblins all looked at her as if she was mad.

 

She smiled at them. "Or I could dangle one of you down there and see what happens."

 

All five gobgoblins snarled at her, or sort of because they could tell she was joking. Still, they did not find the joke to be very funny. It was Kurikondi humour!

 

It was Ipi'Ipis who spoke then. "What of the Ayleid? This city was there city once and yet apart from some big structures such as the tower, a few smaller ones, much of them which remain sealed off, there are no remains to be found. What do you say, Martina?"

 

"We Kurikondi do not speak of the Ayleid or at least we do not willingly speak of them." She shrugged. "What do gobgoblins know of Kurikondi? What should I know of you?"

 

The leader shrugged. "Gobbits went to a secret place that we do not know of though if any of us wish to join them permanently, those who get too old or sick or just tired to survive here any longer, we can do so. We can communicate with them with a little difficulty. They send us resources sometimes to help us in our duties here to keep an eye on what is happening, to regulate the activities of the stupid goblins and to try to keep outsiders away from some places. We hire goblins in some ways. They hunt and destroy any lesser undead to be found down here. They also bring us items they can not use or simply do not see of value. We raise big healthy nice tasting rats and provide the goblins with rat meat, rat teeth necklaces and rat leather garments that we reward them with along with iron weapons and armour. This has been a well working arrangement until recently when things began to go wrong."

 

Martina nodded. "You are having more difficulty controlling the goblins?"

 

"Yes and no." Jata'Tooti frowned. "Many say that the fungisoo, mossiko and makoshooms growing down here is the side-effect of magical battles going on in the city above but we know that this is not true. Yes, they started out that way as small, weak growths but magic and good old gardening know how was used to strengthen them, to assist them to grow across the sewers. This is a mixed blessing to goblins and other creatures down here. Jumpspiders, rats both big and giant, those mad mudcrabs, roaches, the ocassional alligator, all and more suffer from the poisonous toxic effects of the fungisoo. The mossiko is fine, is edible, can be used in various ways. The makoshooms are edible, are nutritional, but they are addictive to goblins and send them crazy. They are less addictive to us gobgoblins but still too dangerous. Goblin tribes in general use the makoshooms sparingly, have incorporated the use into controlled hallucinatory and crazy rituals controlled by their shamans. Some tribes have become addicted berserkers, blood crazed carnivores of anything and everything including other goblins. They are becoming distorted. The makoshooms intrinsic magic is changing them each time a new generation is born. These goblins we call hobgoblins as they are distorting, becoming bigger, stronger, harder to damage but slower and less agile than goblins."

 

The leader shrugged. "These hobgoblins attack goblin tribes, driving them steadily back because hobgoblins now are also gaining new and terrible powers. The only good thing is that they breed slower than do goblins or even we gobgoblins. Hobgoblins attack Sewerfolk harvesting the fungisoo, mossiko and makoshooms for the empire. They attack sewer workers. Now the Imperials are sending down increasingly more soldiers to deal with them and with them come mages and battlemages. This is understandable but we think now it is all a trick. The fungisoo, mossiko and crazy making makoshooms were made to grow wildly through out the sewers to create the hobgoblins and this would then give good excuse for many imperial forces to come down here. This would mean that search parties, sent down here to find something of great value to the false Emperor on the throne, could pretend to be down here to hunt down and destroy hobgoblins. Problem is that the Imperial forces coming down here are also hunting goblins and we gobgoblins."

 

Martina nodded. "Can you retreat into secret areas and seal them off?"

 

"That is what we do already but there are Imperial mages of great experience and skills now hunting the sewers." The gobgoblin frowned. "So far they have not found any of the secret areas hidden by various means or just by the sheer complexity and size of the sewers. You see we don't actually live in the sewers as such. We live in the great maze of the Imperiapolis Catacombs or in least a great section of it of strange design that seems to have been created for some purpose that we do not understand. It is much easier to take you there than to try to explain it to you."

 

Martina snorted. "You mean you really don't want to try to explain it because there are things about it that you do not wish to reveal for now."

 

"Both are true!" The gobgoblin leader frowned. "As for you Kurikondi, you come from another world, you came to this world over a hundred years ago and openly you came to this great continent of Tamriel about twenty years ago but in truth it was more like sixty years ago in secret. You have a hidden homeland somewhere on this world but we know nothing of it. You are more than you seem to be just as we gobgoblins are not truly goblins though we look like them. The gobbits gave us this information."

 

"As you have already said." Martina shook her head. "I want to take us all to a special place for the moment known both as the Drobe of Fate and the FARDIF. We will return right back here when it is time to do so. That is if you agree, gobgoblin Field Elder Jata'Tooti. If you want to know how I discovered that truth with my terrible and mysterious powers, then you should know that you left your identity badge on."

 

The elder looked down, cursed softly but strongly and then looked up even as he removed the badge and put it into a handy small pouch. "Now I feel rather foolish but I was given very short notice before we raced out here in five teams of five. We have lost contact with our comrades. We fear the worst but hope for the best. Yes, we will go with you."

 

Martina nodded with a smile. "Excellent!" Then she activated one lesser fate-wish and they all vanished as they teleported to the big wooden chamber of the FARDIF.

 

To be continued!

[Maharg67]

One moment the young man was not there and the next he was. Soon he was making his way along the hard packed dirt road winding through the Cyrodiil countryside. He adjusted his black wraparound sunglasses and unbuttoned, unzipped his leather motorbike jacket. As for his blue denim jeans, his motorcycle boots, his bumbag with the pouch at the front and his motorcycle helmet, he left them the same as he did his compact canvas backpack. Except some of these things had now changed to better suit the conditions of this world of magical medieval ways. His leather jacket was now studded armour like. His helmet looked more like a war helmet with a grid visor. His denim jeans were also studded. He thought he looked a bit weird. His Betty Boop teeshirt now showed her scantily clad not in a string bikini as it had done but in a chainmail leather banded bikini. She also held sword and shield now with her feet in slim boots.

 

What had been an expensive wristcomputer was now a brass, gold and silver magical bracelet with a crystal glass screen.

 

He did not know who he was, not really, and he did not remember much but he preferred it that way. He gave himself the name of Graham Maharg just because it was convienent to have a name. This new world was familiar to him, was oddly familiar to him. Yet it was different somehow to how he remembered it because it was more intricate, more detailed and he felt it, smelt it, heard it, saw it and perceived it psychic wise.

 

What did he have on his side. His magical inventory backpack, his magical imbued items, his cheat codes, his mods and other resources. He was slimly muscular, tall and with tanned white skin. He was handsome enough but not beautiful. In the brightening sunshine of morning he smelt the wild flowers, carefully made sure he did not step on any ants and observed in the distance the partly tree concealed shape of what must have been an inne. Yes, there were innes on this world.

 

A trio of horse riders passed him at a fast gallop being a courier and two guards. They barely glanced at him because to them he was just a local, was not important, and that was how he liked it to be. Times must be tough, he decided, if a courier needed two lightly armoured but well armed guards. Then they were gone around a bend in the road.

 

As he trudged closer to the inne, he noted a gathered crowd there of local folk. Except something was wrong. Five robed figures and what looked to be their bodyguards were being faced by what looked to be a much larger number of tall, muscular thugs. Voices were being raised but only by the thugs, a mixture of human, ork and khajiit but most were Imperials by the look of them. There was something strange about these thugs and the strangeness was made to seem more so by the comparison between them and a nervous group of onlookers.

 

The onlookers were a bunch of foresters, hunters, farmers, inne people and others including children all dressed in good tough everyday clothes and other gear. Though nervous the locals looked ready to use the loose collection of weapons amongst them.

 

As he got closer he noted other buildings and realised it was not just an inne but perhaps a thorpe, a tiny settlement. There was a general store, a couple of cottages and what looked to be a small temple dedicated to the Nine. But the fine stone block temple looked locked up and its windows had metal shutters down over them. Then it came to him that the robed ones were all Priests or Priestesses of the Nine and that the guards were all Templeguards of the Nine.

 

He didn't like and at the same time that he remembered he had been on that world before was the same moment that he remembered he was rather fond of the Nine. The Nine had done him no harm, though he had annoyed them a couple of times. He had made it up to them by modding a couple of temples and such like into the world reality. Of course he really wasn't 'modding' as such but that was how he liked to think of it. Modding was tricky with a real world.

 

Bored with walking up to them so slowly and wanting to get involved quicker, he flickered and suddenly he was standing right next to the leader of the religious lot and the leader of the hulking thugs who were confronting each other.

 

The big hulking Imperial man scowled. "We don't want Followers of the Nine here any longer. A new god is rising to take their place and you must turn back. This temple will be fixed up as a temple to the Emperor God to come."

 

The tall, elegant priestess was aas tall as the thug but much slimmer. She was tough though and stared him steadily back. "We know of no Emperor God though we have heard whispers of a God-Emperor to come, those whispers emenating from here in Cyrodiil. The three priests, two guards and two helpers who were here vanished just over a month ago. Word has come to our people still in Imperiapolis of this being so. It is true that Cyrodiil has become hostile to we followers but also to others. People are disappointed in the Nine because of the troubled times that have passed including the War of the Five. The empire has suffered such turns before and the Followers of the Nine have prevailed. The false Emperor on the throne is behind the attacks on the Faith of the Nine."

 

The thug realised he had made a slip of the tongue but then he shrugged. "The Emperor has done much for the empire. Look at the fine new highways, all paved, that link Imperiapolis now with all of the cities of Cyrodiil. New aquaducts, new gardens, a new museum, what more do people want?"

 

The priestess frowned. "The empire was weakened and its treasuries were largely empty when this fool took the throne. Now they are bare and his overly elaborate, often badly done projects are proving to be an expensive folly. While some areas of paved highway are in good or reasonable condition, many are in such poor construction that they are a hazard to use and will have to be replaced or just stripped away. The new Grand Rememberance Hall in Imperiapolis will have to be demolished because corruption caused it to be made of inferior design and materials. It has just been completed but already is starting to crumble. Other projects are barely shells or only exist on paper because they are frauds. All the mounds of gold coinage and ingots left in the Imperial Treasuries have been stolen by Obrasis Isanass.

 

To be completed!