The Third Installment

Or two weeks. Then the action furiously resumes.

Åsker heals Markku, who pops up only to be spitted again by a spearman. Håkon, battling valiantly, is overwhelmed by four opponents and goes down, but not without leaving marks on the opposition. Maiyn, visible in the pitiless sunlight flooding the pass, is spitted by an onrushing spearman, skewered by arrows and thumped by rocks, and goes down.

Åsker, with Ludde close behind, exercises the better part of valor and decamp unpursued.

The next day, Åsker returns to the pass. A single guardsman stands desultory watch on the corner of the Dzong. Åsker dispatches the guard with one swift bolt. Scouting his way carefully into the pass, Åsker discovers that the fort is (now) unmanned, but the door is tightly closed. On the other side of the pass Åsker sees a broad valley with a large castle on a peak across the way. Many saffron-robed monks travel the roads leading to and from the castle.

Åsker forms a cunning plan, which is to walk along the road until he meets a monk, have Ludde sit on the monk and steal his robes and hat. This works until he meets a second monk, who addresses Åsker in Tibetan, which language Åsker does not, alas speak. After disposing of the corpus, Åsker takes to the brush and makes his way slowly up to the castle.

Meanwhile, our other heroes awaken in a dungeon cell. It is whitewashed rock with a long, narrow windows high in the wall, from whence comes enough light to see a wizened blue personage sitting in a corner of the cell. This person turns out to be Osbald, from an island far to the northwest. Osbald explains the situation. The Bön seek to end the world, so it can be recreated with the Bön on top. They believe that they can do this by feeding the dragon in the Navel of the World a food the dragon will not eat. Something about a logic fault reset. Anyway, to qualify as food, it must be something that people eat. So the Bön collect rare and disgusting foods, and see if people will eat them. They do this by locking people in cells until they are very very hungry and then providing “dinner.” Osbald recites a long list of disgusting foods he has eaten recently.

Nauseated by the gustatory desecration, Markku decides it is time to leave. Reasoning that heat will make the iron softer, and thus easier for Håkon to smash open, he casts his Sauna spell, causing the iron door to heat to the perfect temperature for making steam from dripping water. As this is considerably less than the melting point of iron, it serves mainly to attract the attention of the jailers. Indeed, a “yeouch!” and muffled cursing in Tibetan tell Markku that he has inconvenienced a guard.

Much thumping and jangling from the corridor and the cell door is unlocked and pulled open to reveal an impressive array of spearpoints. Powerful magic is wrought in the corridor. Markku discovers that he has no mana.

Enter an impressive array of heavily armed guards followed by a stately important personage. The personage introduces himself as Chokpa Rinpoche. Acolytes hustle in an open barrel of a glabrous cloudy white substance that sets Osbald cowering in a corner. Chokpa asks if anyone will eat the stuff. Markku steps forward and does his best to pretend that he actually enjoys the prospect. As an acolyte offers a mercifully small plate to Markku, Maiyn leaps across the cell to smash the plate into the dirt – whereupon his fish-belly white body is impaled by six different spearmen and he peacefully takes his place on the floor and offers no further objections to the proceedings.

Markku recovers the white stuff from the floor. Chokpa offers Markku his magic flask. Markku pours out a dram for Chokpa and one for himself. They each toss back the liqueur, and then Markku places a small amount of the white foodstuff in his mouth. Every eye is on him as he pauses for dramatic effect and then swallows. The crowd winces in sympathy.

Chokpa announces that he cares nothing for treasure, and that the party will be released into what’s left of the world in two days, hah hah hah. The keg is recapped and hurried out of the cell. The door slams, the lock turns, and the crowd noise recedes down the corridor. From the window come the sounds of many people and horses leaving. Then things quiet down.

Markku insists that the cellmates stand watch. As dawn sends its rosy fingers through the cell window, the party awakes. Håkon rushes the door while Markku casts a spell in support. Håkon’s bulging thews smash the bars and locks holding the door closed and slam the door all the way open to crash against the wall. Håkon himself stumbles across the corridor into a wall on the other side. Maiyn takes a quick look around the hallway. To one side, more doors, including one at the end of the hall. To the other side, three very surprised spearmen trying to get organized.

Maiyn slips into the shadows. Håkon seized one of the broken bars from the cell door. Markku Peens two of the guards while Håkon and Maiyn combine to do in the third.

The guardroom yields three spears, two daggers and a ring of keys. A “Detect Magic” spell reveals a dusty, but intact magic hand drum. The party dresses in monk’s robes, or at least Håkon and Maiyn do. Markku will play the role of prisoner. The interior cells are too dark to see into. Markku overdoes a light spell, and intense light streams from around the edges of the cell door and through the peephole, too bright to look into. The party gives up checking cells. The door at the far end of the hallway opens on a stair that leads down to a huge courtyard in the center of the castle. In the middle of the courtyard is a familiar looking Ox, patiently standing attached to an ox cart, in which sits Oma, meditating. Inside the cart are the party’s goods, arms and armor. Chokpa indeed sees little use for these material things. Oma identifies the drum as a flying drum, just add mana.

Distracted by the recovery of valued possessions, the party does not notice as Osbald slips out through the gates standing open in the courtyard. But Osbald runs slap into a monk with a bear, and is dragged kicking and screaming back into the courtyard. For an instant, the group of monks around the cart look suspiciously at the monk, bear and blue man at the gate, but then Markku recognizes Ludde and a touching reunion scene ensues. Osbald again seeks to leave and Maiyn seizes, binds and gags him and slings him into the cart.

The party now sets out to chase down Chokpa Rinpoche, whose path is up the broad river valley below to the Naval of the World. Chokpa is a cloud of dust in the distance. Pushing up the road the party meets a number of Tibetans celebrating the imminent end of the world. That night Åsker and Ludde celebrate too, and end up sleeping in the cart for most of the next day. Towards evening, as the Naval of the World – a tall snow covered mountain – starts to loom on the north side of the valley, Markku dispatches Åsker, still somewhat hung over, to spy on Chokpa using the flying drum. Åsker is successful at drawing fire and triggering a cavalry attack. Six heavily armed and armored riders attack the party, having turned off from Chokpa’s group close ahead.

As the riders charge forward they unlimber bows and send a shower of arrows at the party. Maiyn jumps behind Oma for cover and draws his bow. An arrow means for Maiyn catches Oma four-square and he topples into the cart in mid-chant.

After this small success, however, the battle does not go well for the bad guys. Although they score a few times with arrows while charging in, their big shot magic user spazzes on a couple of powerful spells. Enraged by his loss of face, he axes Markku to the ground. Markku is healed, and smashed again, his usual fate in battle, but does enough damage so that Håkon can finish off the leader.

Håkon meanwhile has engaged an axeman and given and taken mighty blows, emerging bloody but victorious in time to engage the leader as has been related.

Maiyn too has killed his man, and Ludde kills two before the last one flees. Åsker’s contribution is valiant, no doubt, and vital to group success, just less noted.

And there the party sits, some distance behind Chokpa Rinpoche as he seeks to end the world with a keg of Lutefisk.