Forgotten Freedom:5
Last Plot -- Plot Line Home -- Next Plot
Andrea: Say, is it just me or is something strange going on here?
Marish: Oh, are you just catching on now? There is always something strange going on around here.
Andrea: No, I mean stranger than usual. For example does the captain seem a little different since his little lapse in sanity?
At this time Jarlot glances in their direction from the other side of the ship and his eyes seem to momentarily flash blood red.
Marish: You may have a point there. I mean, he never visits me anymore...
Andrea: Moving on. Also, does it bother you that the new guy V brought on board seems to know Kanatash?
Marish: Okay. Now that you mention, it that does seem weird. That Cthulhu guy seems nice enough but
Suddenly Kanatash appears on deck with Cthulhu and Jarlot behind him and the entire crew hears him speaking to them in their minds in a high pitched voice...
Kanatash: I now claim this ship in the name of my masters the great deranged ones. My long observation has shown this ship is the greatest nexus of madness outside the perfection that is Xoriat. You will serve me and, through me, my great masters to use the insanity inherent to this ship to unmake reality. You will serve or your minds shall be reduced to green goo and then whatever is left of your minds shall be used for our purposes anyways. Your captain has already been converted and I will personally crush the minds of every single one of you if necessary. Now choose your doom!
The ninja Jaelas come forward at Kanatash but he stops them by implanting in their minds the realization that they are both ninjas and pirates. The impossibilities of this causes their minds to simply break down and they are quickly reduced to a vegetative state.
Cool Cthulu: Dude! That was not cool! The little dudettes were, like, cool! You can't just do stuff like that to people!
Kanatash: You know I used to look up to you. You were supposed to be the greatest of the deranged ones but you're just some mortal-hugging reality lover. Go back to your room with your dreamlily and guitar, you god damn hippy!
Cool Cthulhu: I... ugh... you... sniff... thats... whaaaaaa! (runs off belowdecks crying)
Kanatash: Now where was I...
That evening in the bowels of the ship, after passing out selective messages disguised as menus at mealtime, Norbaz holds a meeting for the resanifying of the Captain in Cthulhu's room.
Old Dwarf Lady: Oh I do love a party, please help yourself to some ginger snaps, me and the nice tall young man here made plenty. Oh, and feel free to help yourselves to the sweaters as well.
Norbaz: It's good to see we got this turn-out for the meeting. I think I'll open by saying, I'm loyal to the captain, and I won't stand for him being controlled by Kanatash in this manner.
Bruce Ki: The captain is being controlled?
Marish: But what are we going to do, he completely destroyed the Ninja Jaelas... wait, that's not a bad thing. Why are we plotting against him?
Andrea: The madness and his plans to drag us all into a dimension of chaos and insanity and utilize our ship to spread it across the world unmaking everything we hold dear and love to terrorize, steal from, and destroy. A Xoriat incursion would destroy everything. Good, evil, law, and even chaos as we know it would be memories. No longer would there be life, death, or beautiful undeath.
Cool Cthulhu: I dunno, it's not so bad. I like it there, but it's there, it's not supposed to be here. It'd be a bad trip that unravels the fundamental rules of existence... plus he was totally uncool what he did to those Dudettes. And... sniff... and he made me cry...
Ketler: Yeah! He has to pay for so heedlessly destroying my precious creations!
V: Look at them now! Limp and vacant! Though they breathe they are but hollow souls, impossible to mold or teach to be a foe of the corrupted!
Lisa: I think a show of force is necessary. There is no telling what kind of acts of moral depravity and destruction Kanatash could be capable of. He may very well be the one responsible for all the horrible things that follow the ship from port to port.
Doog: I know something on this ship that brings trouble port to port, if you catch my drift.
Marish: Okay then... so what are we gonna do?
Norbaz: That's why I called this meeting, I have no idea.
Michael: I have an idea.
Lisa: Oh, and I presume your explanation will end in some perversion involving myself which will require me to hit you with this. (hefts hammer)
Michael: No, that's for later, I say we go to Squishy and get him to hold Kanatash's pay.
Ajihazi sits down on the deck and begins to cry.
"Sc-sc-scary!" the Kalashtar soulknife whimpers pathetically on the floor. Suddenly, his face twists as if in agony and he screams. His eyes glow a different color than the usual orange. They've sunk into a deep crimson color.
"Filthy little half-breeds! Always trying to foil the plans of the Dark! I WILL KILL YOU!"
With that he forms a huge mindblade, almost four feet in length and throws it at Kanatash. It misses. It nearly hits Jarlot in the head. He squeaks and ducks behind the wheel.
Doog whispers, "I hope they kill each other. They both are such munchkins that they deserve it."
Kanatash flicks his fingers at Ajihazi, blasting him almost over the side of the ship. Ajihazi barely manages to grab a hold of the railing and pull himself back on.
Kanatash giggles. He unleashes a psionic barrage that leaves Ajihazi covered in blood, ice, burns and lacerations.
Ajihazi seems to blur for a second, appears next to Kanatash "touches" him, and Ajihazi mutters "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
Suddenly Kanatash is screaming in whatever passes for pain with a psion uncarnate. Ajihazi is no longer hurt. He's grinning.
"Right, now that we have settled, The Dark is taking this ship. We will use it to further my ascension to power, facilitated by the Devourer of Dreams."
Norbaz looks at Kanatash and back at Ajihazi. "Do we have to eat him? I've no idea how to cook psion uncarnate. Plus he's still alive."
Squishy runs out of his room for the first time in two weeks. "This is the happiest moment of my life, it's my first" holds out a baby umberhulk. remains completely oblivious of the chaos around him as he shreads a real tear.
Michael: I have a plan!
Lisa: Does it involve chucking the baby umberhulk?
Michael: Technically it involves throwing the baby and you taking off your armor, if you must know!
Marish: IT'S A BABY!!
Michael: Well, the baby throwing was the least important part of the plan...
Bruce Ki: Wait, what’s going on?
Ketler: Kanatash bad. Now don’t swallow your tongue...
Bruce Ki: ... What?
Pholly: I say we throw alchemist's fire around!
Andrea: That will help us HOW???
Michael: ...so if you and Marish **** **** while **** with the ninja Jaelas and Andrea **** **** **** you could ****!! That would stop anybody from going crazy with evil!
Marish: *jawdrop*
Lisa: *Slowly raises hammer and readies a smite evil*
Cool Cthulhu-Why can't they just give peace a chance??
Norbaz - (with evil glimmer in eye) hey guys, if they unmake everything it means no alcohol, no gold, and no hookers.
(Smiles cruelly as the majority of the crew gets that familiar video game overdrive supermove look)
Captain Jarlot's log
Call me Jarlot.
I have kept the crew ignorant of the fact that I've attached to the ship a relic of a lost spacefaring civilization's 'spell thingamabob' after having Ketler modify it to travel through dimensional frequencies into the wilds of Xoriat. Having loaded the ships up with Jaelas to supply sufficient holy power, I intend to at last track down the dreaded white leviathan that took my leg... MOBY ORCUS.
Yarr, with a pair of horns like a Snowhill is the Wand Wielding beast that long ago manifested into this realm and crushed my leg with that dreaded wand of his. I had repressed my memory of that day until my encounters with the Quori informed me that in fact I had lost my leg (neverminding the fact I still have it---obviously a Daelkyr trick) to the hands of this dreaded beast of Thanatos.
I think the crew potentially suspects something from the fact that we've already entered the earliest layers of Xoriat due to the screaming wails of madness, Telly-tubbies, slaadi, aberrations, and similiar creatures we have thus encountered. I had hoped to pass them off as distant inbred relatives of Dooj, but they're too smart for that (the aberrations, not the ship's crew).
In any case, it's too late to turn back now, what with having expended all of the crew's retirement fund and medical expenses to buy sufficient weapons for fighting them.
-Jarlot
P.S. I really hope I'm working this thing right. The Dreamlands and Xoriat are pretty close in these writings. Oh well, worse comes to worse we'll just end up in someplace far worse.
Ketler reads the Captain's log "THAT ****!"
Captain Jarlot: Hey folks. Good news. I'm now going to demonstrate some wonderful new tricks for getting rid of the uhh...
Ketler: The Deep Ones crawling up the side of the ship?
Captain Jarlot: You mean the uhhh....sahagin.
Ketler: No, I mean the dread spawn of Cthulhu!
Cool Cthulhu: Hey! Those guys are distant cousins at best!
Captain Jarlot: In any case...
(Causally begins shooting them in the head with his blessed bullets.)
(He then lifts a book titled Necronomicron De Mortis)
"This book written in human skin will help us out greatly. All we have to do to get rid of the Deep Ones is summon a horde of ghouls."
Ketler: Then what will do to get rid of the ghouls?
Captain Jarlot: Simple? We summon a byakhee.
Ketler: "Then what do we do to get rid of the byakhee?
"We summon The Great Old One Dagon," Captain Jarlot said.
Cool Cthulhu: Sweet! I haven't seen him since the stars were last in alignment!
Ketler: HOW WILL WE GET RID OF DAGON!?
Captain Jarlot: Why that's simple. We summon a manifestation of Nyarlathotep.
Ketler: And then we have to deal with Nyarlathotep!
Captain Jarlot: Not at all. For Nyarlathotep is terrified of Cats.
Ketler: That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.
Later
(Nyarlathotep looks at Marish "SCREEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMM")
(Flees into another dread dimensional level)
Marish waved her paw "Meow?"
Ketler: I guess I owe you a coke.
Cool Cthulhu: He's allergic.
Our (anti)heroes find themselves adrift among the first layers of Xoriat, searching for a planar slipstream (whatever that is) in order to return to the Prime Material Plane. Meanwhile, as ever, trouble is brewing aboard...
Doog: OH CRAP!! GUYS WE NEED HELP!!
Marish, V , Ketler, the redshirt, the half-giant assassin, Squishy, Cool Cthulhu ,Michael, Lisa, Jarlot: What is it now? Are the Old Ones back again?
Doog: NO! WE'RE ABOUT TO RUN OUT OF BOOZE!!
Marish, V , Ketler, the redshirt, the half-giant assassin, Squishy, Cool Cthulhu, Michael, Jarlot: NO WAY!!!!
Lisa (under her breath): Finally...
Old Dwarven Lady: Excuse me, I need some help moving things in my room.
Cool Cthulhu: Yeah, I got nothing but time.
Shortly afterward
Cool Cthulhu: Hey V, you'll never believe this, I found a Dwarven portable brewery. The nice old lady was using it as a vase. Now there can be booze again!
(in an instant all of the crew but Lisa and Stupid are present crammed in the doorway)
Everyone: BOOZE!
Ketler: Nothing I need one more.
Jarlot: Ugh, I think we have trouble guys...
Doog: What, more deep ones?
V: Some other type of freaky aberration?
Michael (whispering): Please be a succubus, pleas be a succubus...
Lisa, apparently overhearing, tightens her grip on her warhammer, preparing to smite evil.
Jarlot: I don't know, but it's really big and its coming right for us!
Suddenly a creature becomes visible though the greasy fog. It could be called humanoid, but only in the most vague sense of the word. It has two arms where one would expect them, however it also has six more twisted arms protruding from its lower body where there should be legs. Its most disturbing feature, however, is a massive black stinger protruding from its body in place of a head. Simply looking at it seems to promise visions of vistas even more incomprehensible and obscene than the madness that surrounds you.
Cool Cthulhu: Dude, thats like a Uvuudaum (see epic level handbook). They're, like, bada** dudes. They're like the ones who the Daelkyr report to and stuff.
V: Wait a second, I thought the Daelkyr were meanest, nastiest creatures in Xoriat?!
Cool Cthulhu: Dude, what part of, like, 'infinite plane of, like, infinite madness' do you not understand.
Jarlot: Brace yourselves! It's going to ram us!
The uvuudaum slams onto the deck and begins flailing wildly at the crew and stabbing with its head spike. Suddenly, however, after a short time it simply flies off again.
Doog: What the **** was that about?
Jarlot: I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling about this…
Suddenly a door leading below deck bursts open and Kelter stumbles out, sporting some garish head wounds and carrying a still wiggling tentacle.
Kelter: (mumbling)Mind Flayers... cloning machine... tentacles... head hurts...
Kelter then slips into unconsciousness and falls face first onto the deck.
Jarlot: ****, this was all just a diversion so they could get to the cloning machine.
Lisa: We have to stop them just imagine what horrors they could unleash with that thing! Armies of Daelkyr, hordes of vile aberrations, even more of those spike-headed things…
Doog: It's worse than that look, look!
Doog points towards the door Ketler just came though as dozens of clones of Queen Aurala start to rush through it. Every one of them has malevolently glowing green eyes and wields a mind blade.
Kanatash, who had been lying low since his ill-fated encounter with Ajihazi and the ship's even more ill-fated passage into Xoriat, chooses this time to reveal himself, floating up onto the deck.
Kanatash: (somehow suddenly speaking common) Oh no. Oh **** no! I know I’m supposed to be evil and insane and trying to destroy reality and all but that is just going too far. That is just wrong. There is no way in HELL I am going to put up with that. It is just too low even for me.
(The Crew enters battle with the Auralas)
Doog: (while fending off two Auralas) So, ugh, freaky, insane, Kalashtar, ghost thingy, when did you like start speaking common?
Kanatash: (While nuking Auralas buy the dozen) The name is Kanatash.
Doog: Right, Kanatash, so when did you start speaking common?
Kanatash: I do not know myself the how, when, or why of that question, although I can only postulate it had something to do with my near-death experience and return to the dimensional limbo of Xoriat.
Doog: Um, suuuuuure. Ok, second question why are you helping us? I though you wanted to destroy reality.
Kanatash: Oh, I still wish to rend the fabric of the universe asunder, but I have learned something from my recent experiences. First of all, I now understand why my Daelkyr masters have chosen not to crush your pitiful plane long ago. You see, they long ago could have rent the pitiful druid seals but they prefer to take their time in the matter. I now understand why, since I have shed my mortal form to become pure, though I am effectively among the immortals and it's so much more pleasurable to drag out the fraying of your reality for millennia until reality collapses under its own weight, than to go for the instant gratification of swiftly and brutally snapping reality as you know it.
Doog: Umm, Okay. Meaning what?
Kanatash: I still plan to destroy reality and I still serve the Daelkyr, but I will not betray you and I do not plan to destroy reality until long after you, your descendants, and everyone you have ever known is long dead of old age.
Doog: Sounds fine to me!
Lisa: Well I guess it's sort of an improvement.
Kanatash: Your approval means nothing to me, but I have tired of this pointless combat against these crimes against both nature and madness.
(Kanatash mentally repairs the damage he did to the ninja Jaelas, freeing them from their catatonic state. The Jaelas rush the deck and, recognizing the Auralas, kill several of them before the rest flee into the madness of Xoriat. (of course, what is the chances of that being the end of them?))
Bruce Ki: We need the Captain!
(Watches as the massive monstrosity tears away the machine from the ship to hundreds of miles away in an instant)
(Captain Jarlot staggers out wearing nothing but Bermuda shorts and his pirate cap holding a pair of fruity drinks)
Captain Jarlot: *sings* I've got TWO pina coladas, one for each hand... we'll set sail with Captain Morgan... and we'll never reach dry land. TROUBBLESSS I'VE forgotten, buried them in the sand...
Lisa: Who gets drunk at a time like this!?
Dooj: *belch*
Ketler: Captain! A monster just took away our cloning machine!
Captain Jarlot: Was it Moby Orcus?
Cool Cthulhu: Moby Orcus?
Captain Jarlot: Yes, he's Orcus except MUCH MUCH MUCH worse. Like you and Mega Cthulhu.
Cool Cthulhu: Sniffle... I didn't want to be the small one compared to
Ketler: What is WITH you and Moby Orcus anyway?
Captain Jarlot: I'll tell you what! Irish rock stars tick me off! Especially ones who remix Bond classics and are vegans!
Ketler: ...that's Moby period.
Captain Jarlot: Oh. Well hell then. I'll just detonate the spirit nuke now.
KABOOM
Pholly: I feel so envious...
Andrea: Your plan was... to nuke them... with a nuke in the cloning machine.
Captain Jarlot: Yeah, it's an eldritch machine I picked up in Xen'drick for 3 silvers along with the Isle of Manhattan.
(A passageway has opened up from the strange intersection between the death of such a mighty beast and the detonation of awesome magical power some miles away)
Bruce Ki: At last, a way out!
Lisa: We must escape quickly before it collapses... or... doesn't collapse and leads billions of evil entities onto Eberron.
(The Captain steers the ship around to fly out)
Elsewhere
Daelkyr Willy Wonka: Thank the MOCKERY those people are gone!
Daelkyr Clive Barker: You're damn right about that. Those people are too weird even for us.
Norbaz: Look, I just thought she was requesting human on the menu when she told me to take the dead ones she didn't want to make into some sort of undead back into the kitchen. Its not my fault it went over so well, I put a choice on the menu for Jaela or chicken. I'm just surprised by it.
Michael: Oh come on, there's no shame in admitting you had some.
Norbaz: Hey, I'm a half-giant. I don't care for the racial epitaph of Giants eat people. I'll have you know I just had the chicken. And besides, the new standing orders have forbid me from putting human back on the regular crew menu.
Michael: Then what did you do with the left over cuts of clone Jaela meat that you can't serve the crew.
V: I'm here for the meals for the comatose Ninja Jaelas.
Norbaz: Here you go (hands him a bucket of some kind of stew).
V: Thank you. It is good to know you are repenting for your murder of so many of their number by doing good for those who remain and are ill at that. (V leaves)
Michael: ...that was made with the leftover Jaela cuts, wasn't it.
Norbaz: You see, that is where you and I differ. You go through obvious means of darkness and slaughter in the name of the evils of the world. I, on the other hand, like to use the cruelty and viciousness of a little thing called subtlety.
Last Plot -- Plot Line Home -- Next Plot
