And Now for Something - Different

[Wyvern]

Arawn

 

"I will" says a voice behind them, and Arawn walks forward. The old lady smiles but before she can speak "WHAT'S THAT!!!!!?" Arawn shouts pointing to his right. Everyone looks to the right even the sheep. Seeing the crone distracted Arawn steps hard on her foot and runs inside laughing all the way "Here I come Princess Willamina." The old lady hops on one foot screaming in pain. She turns and shakes her fist as Arawn enters the gate, she quickly recomposes herself "Okay, who's next?"

[Wyvern]

Zool

 

"I will," says StMichael.

 

"Very well," says the witch. "Your question, then, is this;"

"How much wood would a Woodchuck chuck if a Woodchuck could chuck wood?"

[Wyvern]

Ephemeron

 

StMichael takes his time thinking about the answer to the question. "How much wood..?" "What's a woodchuck?" "Chuck?"

 

Ephemeron sighs. His sheep are becoming impatient, as they notice a pasture on the other side of the gate.

 

"May I just let my sheep in to graze on the nice green grass over there?" Ephemeron asks the witch.

 

"No, you must first let StMichael finish his question then I will ask you one. Got a problem with that?"

 

"Well, you just asked me a question, and I say the answer is YES!".

 

At first the witch is confused. Then realizing her mistake, she becomes furious. So, with a signal from Ephemeron, the entire flock of sheep charge through the gate, trampling the witch into the ground.

[Wyvern]

Destructo

 

Destructo is also getting impatient waiting for st. micheal to answer his question.

 

The witch composes herself again. Destructo asks politely "Do you mind if i just go in, this guys gonna take forever?"

The witch replies "Will you just let him answer the question first?"

 

Destructo replies "no" and walks through the gate as the witch is tricked once again.

[Wyvern]

Wyvern

 

No! That Arawn guys going to snatch MY GIRL! Wait Princess Willamina, I'm COMING!!

 

Wyvern attempts to rush in, but the old lady stops him:

 

"You must not pass until all..."

"Shut up you old hag!"

 

Wyvern casts fireball on the old hag, charring her to cinders. He then watchs disgusted as Ephemeron's sheep eat the remains.

 

"Come my friends, we have no time to waste! We must get there before Arawn! CHARGE!!!"

 

StMichael, who is still pondering the difficult question unaware that the old lady's dead, is trampled by the flock of charging sheep...

 

Ephemeron and Wyvern stop the charge and rush over to the mangled body of StMichael.

 

"Oh great! First heal StMichael, then CHARGE..."

[Wyvern]

Ephemeron

 

After quickly healing StMichael, they begin the charge up the mountain. It does not take long before everyone becomes incredibly tired.

 

"It didn't... look that steep... of a mountain.... from the bottom..." puffs Ephemeron between breaths.

 

The sun begins to shine through the clouds, and soon, everyone is not only tired, but sweating and panting from the intense heat. They notice a little cave on the side of the trail and walk towards it to catch their breaths in the shade...

[Wyvern]

Zool

 

Inside the air is cool. The opening is quite small, especially for Wyvern, but they all squeak through to find the passage widens inside.

 

"This is better than walking in the sun," Ephemeron says. "Let's see where it goes."

 

StMicheal draws his sword, which radiates a pale white light to see by. The walking is made rather difficult by all the sheep, but casualties are few - they quickly learn not to step in front of Wyvern.

 

The passage begins to wind down at a gentle angle. They pass a small pool from a spring on one side of the cave, where all take a grateful drink of the cool water.

 

After a twist in the cave all gasp, as they enter a chamber of glittering beauty, the swords light reflected in a million tiny crystalline prisms. The walls of the cave remain glittery from then on.

 

StMichael sheaths his sword, but a pale light remains. The Mages all look at each other, a little uncertain at this obviously magical display so deep under the ground. Without a word, they continue.

 

Down, down, down they walk the trail in the cave, the ghostly light remaining. After a while, they notice the trail widening, and the light dimming. After stumbling over some sheep, Wyvern (who is getting a little tired of eating sheep) said gruffly, "Can we have some light, StMichael?"

StMichael, who had been concentrating on his footing and wondering idly just how much wood a Woodchuck could chuck, quickly held up his sword.

 

His sword seemed to give off much less light than it previously did, then Destructo remarked that it seemed they were in a much larger chamber. But they could easily see eyes - the white light of the sword reflecting in the twin coins of each persons eyes, and a multitude of eyes from the sheep spreading out around the mages, and further out two dinner plates.

 

All eyes turn to look at the dinner plates. The dinner plates blink.

 

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!" All the Mages and all the sheep stampede, looking for a way out. Mass pandemonium ensues. Everyone is looking for an exit, and noone can see anything.

 

"STOP" Roared a mighty voice. The lights sprang up at the sound of the voice.

 

The sheep continued to mill about, but the mages regained their composure. There heads all snapped around to Look toward the sound of the voice. They saw a giant mouth lined with rows of sharp teeth, under the dinner plate eyes. An odd multicolored light was emenating from within the mouth, and a strange glowing blueish hued haze was emenating from the beasts nostrils.

 

Then the rest of the beast began to glow. It was a long sinuous Dragon, 100 feet long. It was generally whitish or ghostly clear, like it's meter long scimitar claws, which seemed lit from within. But over it's scales pulsed blue and reddish flashes of magical energy, moving to the rythm of the mountain. It's long wings were folded on it's back. As the beast glowed more, more of the cavern they were in could be seen. It looked almost big enough for the dragon to fly around in.

 

The Beast suddenly burst out laughing. "HA Ha Ha Ha HA Haaaa!" It was a loud, booming, mirthful laugh, and it gave the mages some hope that the dragon didn't mean to tear them limb from limb. Not just yet, anyway.

 

"Ha Ha," boomed the dragon again. "You are very funny mages," he said with a wide smile, full of razor sharp teeth. As he spoke the light brightened considerably. Red flowers began to grow out of the walls of the cave, and a flock of buzzards suddenly coalesced out of the blue haze from his nostrils. The buzzards began to fly around in circles over our heroes. "But I suppose I should ask, WHO DARES DISTURB MY REST!?"

[Wyvern]

Ephemeron

 

The mages stare at the dragon in fear, and realize that this is the magic dragon that Lord Dreadful told them about.

 

"So all those glittering crystals must be that huge magic node!" Ephemeron realizes, and turns back to look up the trail. He also looks around for his sheep, who must have scattered up the trail in the confusion.

 

He notices that the glowing seems a bit fuzzy, almost woolly. "That's odd..." he thinks. Then he realizes those are his sheep up there with the node. They were eating the little fragments of it.

 

Ephemeron wants to run up towards his sheep to stop him, but he doesn't want to make any sudden movement in front of the dragon.

 

He then thinks to himself. "If Lord Dreadful could make a dragon have a magic attack because of this node, I wonder what this node is about to do to my sheep..."

[Wyvern]

Zool

 

Ha Ha Ha!" Roars the dragon after a pause. "You mages are good and quiet. I like you. I think I save you for later."

 

With that the Dragon drew in a deep breath, and blew...

 

There was a swirling flash, and all the mages and sheep found themselves in a large room with a stone floor, tapestries on the walls, and a wooden ceiling. On one side of the room was a giant fireplace with a roaring fire. On the other end was a sweeping staircase. A huge circular chandelier hung in the center with 147 everburning candles in it.

 

Standing next to the fire was a heavy elderly mage with a whicked sneer. "Thankyou for coming," he said. "I am Lord Dreadful.

 

"Who's that?" asked a sweet voice. Standing at the head of the stair was a stunningly beautiful woman with flowing blonde hair. Her tight gown showed all the right curves.

 

"Gentleman." said Lord Dreadful, "Let me introduce Princess Willamina."

 

The Mages gaped in lu..., er, awe.

 

After a moment Lord Dreadful snapped his fingers, drawing the attention of the mages with a start. "Yes, yes, you can get to know the beautiful Princess later, but right now we need to talk. It seems we are now all prisoners of the Magic Breathing Dragon.

 

The mages looke out of a small window pointed to ny Lord Dreadful. Outside could be seen shimmer of a force dome around the castle.

[Wyvern]

Arawn

 

Arawn then appears in the room a suprised look on his face. "Hey there you guy are!" he says. He rushes over and hugs them (which made them all uncomfortable) "I got lost, but when I doubled back I couldn't find you guys, but I found a sheep(which I ate) and went into the cave, met some dragon and poof here I am." He looks about at the chamber gaze falling on the princess."WOW!!" his eyes go huge and jaw drops he straightens himself. "You must be the princess, I've come to save you," He says his voice deep and heroic "how bout a kiss?" Arawn runs at the princess, who in turn runs and the two race about the room."Come on just a little kiss." Arawn pleads, trips over a sheep and fall face first to the floor. Arawn doesn't get up, but the princess takes this time to move to the other end of the room. Arawn groans and sits up "Okay so how do we get out?" rubbing his nose. "Stupid sheep."

[Wyvern]

Ephemeron

 

"A sheep?" Ephemeron turns around. "How did that get here? Hmm, must've got teleported with Arawn here."

 

Ephemeron looks closely at the sheep. It seems to possess a sort of magical breath. "The crystal shards of the node must be taking effect."

 

Ephemeron turns back towards a window and looks at the marvelous view this mountain-top castle possesses. "I wonder what the rest of the flock back in the cave are going to do...", he thinks quietly, as the rest of the mages continue to stare at Princess Willamina...

[Wyvern]

Zool

 

"There is no way out!" screamed the princess. "And you guys are no help. What a bunch of incompetants!" The Princess was livid as she continued. You guys are delivered right to the dragon, and do you kill it? No! Just one teeny tiny lttle dragon, and all you gotta do is kill it. Do you know what this climate has done to my hair? Do you know how many nails I have broken getting my own tissues? Do you know..."

 

"I'm afraid she's right," Lord Dreadful says after getting the princess to sit down and shut up. "When the Dragon appeared, he put a magical force shield around the castle which I have been unable to penetrate." Lord Dreadful sighed, then said with a wistful voice, "If only we had the 'Goose of Redemption'."

 

Everyone looked at Wyvern. Wyvern belched, a few feathers puffing out of his mouth as he did so. "Er, excuse me..." he said, covering his mouth with one hand. He looked around the room nervously.

 

Arawn says, "A Goose? The Goose of Redemption? Yippee! On my way here, as I was crossing the lake, the Lady of the Lake gave me this goose, and called it Honker, the Goose of Redemption!" From under his robe he produced a fat white goose.

"Honk" said the Goose.

 

Then Ephemeron came forward. "Wait a minute," he said. "You mean the Lady of the Lake came to you too?" From under his robe he too produced a fat white Goose.

"Honk" said the new Goose.

 

Destructo said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute! You mean you guys got geese...? And from under his robe he produced a white goose.

"Honk" said this goose too.

 

Everyone looked at StMichael. He was holding a fat white goose.

"Honk" it said.

 

Everyone looked at Lord Dreadful. "We all have geese," they said in unison.

 

"No, no, I'm afraid that's quite impossible. All lore states that there can only be one 'Goose of Redemption'.

 

"But how do we know which is the right Goose?" asked Ephemeron.

 

"We will have to test them," stated Lord Dreadful.

 

"Yeah," said Destructo, "well I hope it wasn't Wyvern's goose."

 

Everyone shot Wyvern dirty looks. Wyvern looked at the ground.

 

Lord dreadful took Destructo's goose and put it down in front of Wyvern. "Give him the Goose!" Lord Dreadful commanded it.

The goose sat there for a minute, then said "Honk".

 

"That's not him," said Lord Dreadful. The goose disappeared in a flurry of feathers into Wyvern's mouth, who was glad to have something besides sheep.

 

After that everyone put there goose in front of someone and commanded, "Give him the Goose! Give him the Goose!" Making for a very silly scene indeed. Then something happened.

 

"Oooh!" someone shouted, someone female. All eyes turned to the princess. A rush of wind seemed to fill the hall. The Princesses dress had flipped up over her head for a split second, showing her slip.

"Oh my God!" she shouted, and then fainted.

"Honk" said the goose, standing behind her. StMichael, who was standing beside her, first turned red with embarresment, then lunged to catch her falling figure.

 

"That must be it!" shouted Lord Dreadful as he ran to scoop up the goose.

 

The princess was quickly regaining consciousness. "Oh my..." she was saying. "Oh my. I feel... I feel so strange. I feel - So sorry I've been such a pain in the rear all my life!"

 

"How very redeeming," said Lord Dreadful. "Wow, I am impressed. Very well, we obviously have the correct goose, so let's go defeat the dragon."

 

"But you said we couldn't penetrate the barrier," said Arawn.

 

"I said we could'nt leave." said Lord Dreadful. 'But, the dungeon passage that leads into the mountain is still open. We can go down, defeat the dragon, and leave that way."

 

"The goose! the goose! Where is the goose! You can't let that poor defenseless creature go up against that beast! I won't allow it." The princess started to cry in a very princess like fashion, melting the hearts of all around. She went up to Lord Dreadful and gently took the goose.

 

"My dear, the goose has the power to defeat the dragon. It will not be harmed, most likely..."

 

The princess clutched the goose close to herself. Very close to herself.

 

"Honk" said the goose.

 

Lord Dreadful eyed her sideways and said quietly to Wyvern, "You know I think the Princesses prince has come, and I think it's the goose!"

[Wyvern]

Zool

 

OOC: ok guys, I've had my fun - from now on I'm the dragon. Good lucK

[Wyvern]

Ephemeron

 

"Well then, let's go through the dungeon passage and go defeat the dragon!", Ephemeron shouts, eager to get back to his sheep. Everyone agrees and they begin.

 

"Wait... where exactly is this passage?"

 

"Um... I don't know... do you?"

 

"No... don't you, Lord Dreadful?"

 

"Well, I said there was one, but I can't really remember where it is, as I've never used it before..."

 

"Great..."

 

And so, our heroes begin searching through the castle, opening doors and patting walls, trying to find the dungeon passage...

[Wyvern]

Zool

 

At this point our heroes felt a small tremor, which quickly passed.

 

Deep in the mountain, in the lair of the dragon, Chaos reighned.

 

The Magic Breathing Dragon had sneezed.

 

A hurricane spun in the cavern, tickling the dragon in his favorite spots. "Ha ha ha hahahahahaha!" Laughed the dragon, but even his roaring laughter could not be heard over the hurricane.

 

The dragon watched as a house and then a witch on a broom swept past his nose in the air, making him laugh even harder. The roof of the cavern had turned into a purple sky, the floor was a lake of creamed corn, in which crowfish ate hungrily. On the lake was a restaurant run by 1000 devil monkyes/monkey devils, all trying to find what dish of calculus the dragon would prefer. They held a large text menu in front of the dragon. The dragon rolled over and laughed, his feet in the air, his arms holding his sides. 147 dancing hamsters spun about randomly throughout the cavern.

 

In the castle strange things also began to happen...

[Wyvern]

Zool

 

"here's a stair that goes down," said Ephemeron, after opening a door.

The group followes Ephemeron down the stairs to another door. They open it. It opens onto a balcony at the top of some more stairs. They look down, and see the grand hall and the doorway across the hall they had just come from.

"Hmm..." says Ephemeron.

[Wyvern]

Ephemeron

 

"Hmm... interesting..." Ephemeron says thoughtfully. They move down the stairs. There are two doors, one on the left and one on the right.

 

"You guys wait here while I check this out," Ephemeron says. He opens the door on the left and goes in, closing the door behind him. He walks down the hallway, and opens the door at the end. When he steps through, he sees the rest of the party.

 

"I thought I told you guys not to go anywhere," Ephemeron says, annoyed.

 

"We didn't go anywhere."

 

"Oh...", Ephemeron says, realizing that he has ended up walking through the right door. "Now, this doesn't make sense..."

 

Meanwhile, the sheep that were still with the magic node have been roaming towards the exit of the cave, when they notice a small side passage. They begin charging up this passage, which seemed to lead towards the castle at the top...

[Wyvern]

Ephemeron

 

OOC:

Woohoo! I have veteran status!

[Wyvern]

Wyvern

 

Wyvern, walking after Ephemeron (who has veteran status), is thinking of how to dispatch of the Goose of Redemption. If the goose turned out to be a prince, Wyvern's entire quest for the heart (and body ) of Princess Willamina will have been futile! He must not take any chances! He looks to the Goose with evil eyes.

 

"Honk!" says the Goose and bites Wyvern on the nose!

 

"Ooowwwwww....!" exclaims Wyvern, "that hurt you little..."

 

Wyvern is about to strangle the poor Goose when Willamina once again cuddles him in her breasts. Wyvern quickly turns away, thinking dirty thoughts...

 

Something else was bothering Wyvern. Something about this dragon. He remmembers playing with his best dragon friend, Timmy, in draconian kindergarden. There was something special about Timmy. Something different... Then, it struck him! Timmy breathed magic!

[Wyvern]

Arawn

 

Even as Wyvern thinks about Timmy he notices that another goose stands behind Princess Willamina. Wyvern then looks at the goose that Willamina holds, the goose looks at Wyvern and winks. Wyvern does a double take, Ephemeron (who has veteran staus) is going through door after door only to return back where he started.

 

"Honk!!" goes the goose behind the princess, she turns and screams dropping the goose in her hands. The two gooses stand side by side and start honking. By now the others are watching, until someone says "Hey, where's Arawn!?"

 

"Ah, shoot!" says one of the gooses and starts to shift, Willamina screams again as the goose she cuddled turns to Arawn, with the biggest grin on his face. "Now about that kiss" Arawn makes a lunge and the princess takes off again goose in hand. She goes through the right door only to come out the left, she goes throught the right door and comes up behind the party all the while Arawn chases her, arms wide and lips puckered, until the chases is once more ended by Arawn tripping over the sheep. "Stupid sheep" Arawn mutters, Willamina clutches the goose all the tighter and takes several steps from Arawn. "Sorry about biting you ,Wyvern. Now how do we get out?"

[Wyvern]

Ephemeron

 

Ephemeron sighs as he becomes tired of walking through doors only to return to the original room. He sits down in the middle with his lone sheep and watches as the rest of the party bickers.

 

Suddenly, they feel a slight trembling, and all of a sudden, part of a wall explodes as hundreds upon hundreds of sheep burst through. Ephemeron is ecstatic that his sheep have found the path. "Quick everyone, here's the path!"

 

Everyone quickly begins descending down the tunnel towards the cave...

[Wyvern]

Wyvern

 

Wyvern follows the path the sheep take. Soon, the party is walking on pink marshmellows. An electric eel flys by.

 

Wyvern instinctivly holds Willamina close to him. Willamina, in turn, slaps Wyvern.

 

"Something strange is going on here..." Wyvern says.

 

"You mean the marshmellows and the electric eel?" says Arawn.

 

"No" says Wyvern, "I mean Princess Willamina resisting my charm!"

[Wyvern]

Ephemeron

 

"Well, that's nothing strange," jokes Ephemeron, but then quickly apologizes as Wyvern turns menacingly towards Ephemeron.

 

"Alright now, so how exactly shall we tackle this dragon friend of yours, Wyvern?", Arawn asks as they stand there upon the marshmallow ledges.

 

"Um guys, let's think while we walk ok?" Ephemeron worriedly says, as his sheep are beginning to eat the marshmallow ground...

[Wyvern]

Destructo

 

"Well we could attemt to destroy the cavarn, node and all. Maybe the dragon would lose its powers then." suggests Destructo.

 

OOC: i should get a bonus for being the only one not to take a pass at the princess yet.

[Wyvern]

Arawn

 

Our hero continue walking, when the princess screams looking down, it is then our heroes notice that they are walking on water, below the surface are birds are flying(swimming?) while above their heads fish swim(flying?) Arawn looks down and taps the ground/water. "It seems firm" he says "but it's impossible we can't walk on water, I should sink." As soon as he's said that he falls through the water disrupting a flock of birds under the surface. Frantically he rises and gets on top, of the water again panting. It's solid to his touch once more. "Huh?" he says taping the water once more "that was strange"