Slumbering. Sleep.
Blaz’tik felt energized, and yet drained. He felt excited, yet fearful. Each emotion, each feeling, came like the tides Sunken Strait. Every time he closed his eyes, even for a second, he saw the swirling mist, then the slowly emerging gears, hundreds of them, the numbers, the letters, all scrolling before his eyes, rapid messages, too quick to read.
The voice had not talked to him, for what felt like days, but had probably only been hours.
Blaz’tik had drifted off to sleep standing up, when his eyes opened he felt different. He looked at his hands and the magic continued to crackle between his fingers. “What –tic!- is happening to me?” he said to no one in particular.
He had regretted getting separated from…
From?
He closed his eyes and tried to visualize who he had come down here with. There were others. He was certain of it.
A human?
Yes. A human. A human of some importance. What was his name?
His name was Tawmis! Yes! Tawmis. And he was the son of someone…
Suddenly Blaz’tik felt a shock through his body. The grey mist, the gears were back.
Blaz’tik gasped and looked around.
What was he thinking about a moment ago?
He stood for a moment, trying to recall what it was he had just been thinking about. After several moments, he simply shrugged and continued forward. “I must help the –tic!- Undying One if I am ever to get out of here.”
Elsewhere in Mount Grimrock…
Coy kneeled down and touched the ground, “Your mage friend is close. It looks like he was here not too long ago. But his movements – they’re not fluid. It looks like he’s … jolted when he walks. His steps are erratic.”
“What would cause that?” Tawmis asked.
“My guess?” Coy replied, twitching the whiskers on his nose. “Grimrock is getting the best of your mage friend. The magic is corrupting him.”
“How can that be?” Silvertan hissed.
“Has the mage friend ever told you about Grimrock?” Coy asked, standing up, wiping off his hands.
“Yes, that the entire mountain is alive,” Tawmis answered. “Magic courses through the entire mountain, like blood. That’s how the torches remain lit. That’s how everything got enlarged. That’s why there’s undead everywhere. He told us all of that.”
“Did he ever tell you about the Undying One?” Coy leaned back against the wall.
“He may have mentioned it,” Tawmis replied, folding his arms across his chest. “Even I have heard all the stories of some magical being that nearly destroyed the world and was imprisoned down here. It’s all nonsense.”
“But it’s not,” Coy said, looking much like his name sake. “I have seen it. It’s very much real. And I have seen what it does to magic users. It uses the mountain to vitalize the mages, makes them addicted, for lack of a better word, to the magic they feel down here – especially as they go deeper, get closer to the Undying One. So this way, the mages never want to leave. Then he slowly begins to drain the magic from the mages bodies, back into himself. He’s been doing this since he’s been cast down here.” Coy paused for a moment, “Your parents,” he pointed his thin, furry finger at Tawmis suddenly, “did not ‘escape’ from Grimrock. They were sent down here on a mission; a mission to try and stop the Undying One. The fabled Orb of Zhandul, staff of the mad mage Zhandul himself, that they had supposedly brought down here for ‘safe keeping’; that is the tale that is, as you would say, nonsense. The truth of the matter is they, along with their guardian, Mork the Minotaur, were escorting a mage academy dropout by the name of Sancsaron the Wry down to the Undying One to use the fabled Orb of Zhandul that they had helped Sancsaron locate. Sancsaron could not be trusted to do this alone, as he hungered for great power, and would have been easily corrupted by the Undying One. By the time they reached the Undying One, Sancsaron was too far gone – he turned on your parents. Mork died protecting them. Your father killed Sancsaron, and your mother shattered the Orb of Zhandul against the Undying One’s metallic prison. The resulting blast should have incinerated everyone in the room. It had barely damaged the Undying One’s prison, sending small fragments in different directions. The Orb was shattered, your parents alive, and the Undying One was still absorbing magic. Your parents retreated to the first floor again, and called out to the guard who tossed down a line to them and pulled them back out of this prison. Your parents came here to destroy the Undying One. They failed.”
Tawmis, with his hands still folded across his chest, scoffed. “How is it that you could possibly know all of this?”
“I’ve been down here a long time,” Coy replied. “A very, very long time. I’ve survived by moving through small tunnels and grates throughout Grimrock. I have waited for someone to come down here and destroy the Undying One. I believed that all of you were the key. At least I did until the mage was separated from us. Now I fear it may already be too late for him.”
“And now, us,” Coy finally added after a long moment.
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Tawmis Sanarius – Human (Son of Contar Stoneskull and Yennica Whitefeather) - Warrior
Taren Bloodhorn – Minotaur - Warrior
Blaz’tik – Insectoid - Mage
Silvertan – Lizardman - Rogue
Coy – Ratling from the Isle of Nex – Rogue
and the segment in question was written in Aug 2012!)