A hole in a hill framed with ashy grey brambles. Motes of orange-red light on the tips and petals of equally brightly colored thorny flower bushes shine within.
A breeze, gentle and constant, wafts a scent of burnt incense and sandalwood outward, and a low stone well can be seen within.
A man in robes, a sash, and a cape approaches. He wears a sword on his belt and another on his back.
For one moment, he stops to smell the incense. Ahh~
Enough relaxing. Into the dungeon he goes.
The ‘room’ is large and open, walled with thick ashen brambles, with a faraway affect of a cloudy sky. There stands a low stone well at the center, though it's missing any mechanism or bucket. It's quiet. The rose bushes sizzle faintly. Occasionally a petal catches and goes up in a flare of light and a sudden stronger scent of incense for a moment.
A pair of green eyes watch him from under one of the bushes, halfway across the room.
He crosses to halfway across the room and crouches near the bushes where the eyes hide. “So who are you?”
Oh, he's long gone from that spot. In another bush, darting between them quite quickly.
The fox just laughs in response.
“Think you’re a tricky fox. I know the type.”
He does not follow, and instead examines the bushes more closely, considering them.
There are no leaves. The wood is dark brown where it's not grey, and seems oily. The flowers occasionally light small embers of their own accord. There are patches of ash here and there as if they've burned down before.
Off to the side a ways, he can make out the shape of a wooden bucket, half buried under a mat of vicious-looking spiny vines.
A bit of something unpleasantly pungent and acrid oozes from the spines nearest the point of contact.
Well, there’s a threat. He smiles.
To the fox, wherever it is, “I’m about to fight this plant. You could use this as an opportunity to mess with me, but I’d respect you more if you didn’t.”
Sword pointed out, keeping his distance, he will cut at the vines to free the bucket.
The vines part cleanly under the blade with barely a sizzle. He can now reach the bucket without touching them at all.
“Aha! I now claim my prize.”
He picks up the bucket, and looks around for any rope or anything to lower it down with. That’s how wells work, yes? Need a bucket and rope?
There are two other nasty bramble patches, containing a coil of rope and a wooden crank doohickey, respectively.
“If you wish to build a well from parts, you must first kill the world, it seems.”
Two more parts, two more cuts.
One of the cuts has a couple of vines smolder alarmingly, rather like a cartoonish fuze, but they burn out before reaching the nearby rose bushes. The bushes almost seem to droop in disappointment.
“Not today, fire plants.”
He is no well builder by trade, but these three parts shouldn’t be too hard to put together?
Probably not, but first...
"Hihihihihihihi!"
That fox is back.
"I'm sure you realize, I can't just let you do that, mister!"
The fox nips forward and delivers a nasty bite to the invader's Achilles tendon. Or thereabouts. It deals 1 damage.
Tendon bitten, and might have hit an artery or something there too. Leg feels like it hit something important, at least.
Health 1/2
Didn’t kill him yet, though, which means he can strike back.
Cut: every turn, at will, portable (10 Experience)
The basest principle of sword law. Cut the enemy. 5 damage.
Health: 0/3
It bisects the fox quite cleanly. He disperses into ash and sparks.
"Ugh... The big guy was too clever for his own good, I guess..."
The voice echoes and fades.
He shrugs. “I correct myself. If you wish to build a well from parts, you must first kill the world and one fox.”
The sash he wears is repurposed into a tourniquet for his leg. Once that is dealt with, back to assembling the well parts.
The well offers no additional challenges. There's a slot for the crank, and for the rope to attach to the crank, and a handle loop for the bucket. It even magically pulls itself together if it seems like he's having trouble. The bucket flattens out into a large and surprisingly stable platform. If any weight is put on it, it'll descend slowly. The other end of the rope dangles down the well, too, if you'd rather trust that.
He looks a bit confused, but then realizes this is for transportation, not fetching water. Treading lightly, he carefully steps onto the platform and descends.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post