Famfic Fantasy Adventures

Chapter 1: Splitting the Party? Check!

"Pretty sure the trail ends here," said Keziah as they approached a small clearing. Filling most of the clearing was a tower of about three stories, although that was hard to tell because its sleek black walls had no windows at all. The only entrance they could see was a large, cracked wooden door on the left side of the tower, framed by two ugly winged gargoyles.

"I say we climb it," he said, his fiery elven eyes shining spots of orange light up and down the tower.
"Wait," said Twitch, placing a hand to his shoulder, "let's just check it out first."
Cassius nodded. "Good idea, let's find any evidence of booby trapping before entering."
They all looked at the tower in detail for a few moments, but saw nothing more than they had already. Eventually Cassius decided that there was nothing more that they would be able to spot.
"I say we enter it carefully and scan for enemies, and fight if we must."
"One of us could climb up," Twitch suggested.
"Why should we climb if there are no windows?"
"There has to be a top."
"So you want to see if there's an entrance at the top?"
Keziah rolled his eyes at how slow Cassius was being, the action made clear by the lights on the tower, "Yes. I'll climb."
"Sounds good," Cassius replied.

The three of them then cautiously entered the clearing, and Keziah went to climb the tower. But as he did, Cassius saw the gargoyles slowly detach themselves from the wall, and turn towards the elf! Luckily Keziah had noticed them too, and having quickly drawn his short sword, turned to face the monsters. At the same time, Twitch picked a dagger from somewhere within the folds of his dark clothes and tossed it at one of the gargoyles,  piercing its stone-like flesh and dropping it from the sky. However, the other gargoyle had managed to slip past Keziah's defences and latch onto his face! Twitch watched helplessly as it attacked him, and then chuckled as a cougar came leaping out of the trees, tearing the gargoyle from his master's face and ripping it to shreds. He should have known he could count on Korruk to look after Keziah, he realised as he walked over to collect his dagger.
"Alright, Keziah, shall you commence to climb the tower?" Cassius asked, "Myself and Twitch will enter the tower carefully. Or shall we wait for you first?"
"Nah, let's do it simultaneously," Keziah replied, "Korruk can stay and catch me if I fall."
"That works," said Twitch as he watched Keziah begin his ascent.

Cassius noticed it was getting dark, and encouraged Twitch to enter quickly, as the cult of D'hala would be starting their attack soon. However, as they approached the door they heard scuffling above as Keziah scrambled for foothold. They looked up in alarm, but the elf was okay. And yet when Cassius opened the door, he heard sounds of squelching movement from inside.
They'd disturbed something.

Peering through the gap of the ajar door, Cassius saw a dark room lit only by a brazier in its centre, leaving the edges in total darkness, but clearly lighting two huge statues almost as high as the ceiling on either side of the room. The sound had come from the opposite side of the room, and Cassius gazed into the darkness to see a huge creature slowly unfurling itself as it slithered into the light. Nearly as big as one of the statues - a strangely manklike mess of claws, cracked skin, chitinous plates, and tentacles, it rose onto... whatever it was standing on, and attacked.
"Maybe it wants to talk?"
"Twitch, we're storming an evil tower - we attack the thing!"
As it shambled closer into the light, Cassius recognised it as a Chuul, an amphibious beast that was some unnatural combination of man and sea life.
"Beware its tentacles!" he warned.
Thankful that he had opted for a halberd as his weapon as choice rather than a sword, Cassius approached the Chuul slowly and thrust forward with his weapon to stab it, but as he withdrew it from the beast, he felt a tentacle whip around his ankle below his metal armour and pierce it with its claws. Desperate to break it's hold, Cassius hurriedly stabbed at the tentacle with his halberd, but was pulled to the ground before he could. However, as soon as he landed, he felt the tentacle recoil and heard a screeching bubbling scream, and he looked up to see Twitch reaching for his rapier, having just thrown a dagger in the Chuul's eye. But now Twitch was within reach of the monster's tentacles, and before Cassius could warn him, two tentacles grabbed at each of his arms, knocking over the brazier as they did and setting fire to the thief's cloak!

Meanwhile, Keziah stopped for a moment as he began climbing back down the tower, dark green hooded cloak billowing in the wind, and wondered why Cassius would be making such a strange scream.

Cassius leapt to his feet to save Twitch, stabbing at the Chuul once, then twice as another tentacle clutched around his arm, only to fall off feebly as the monster died, moaning and gurgling as it sank bank into its corner. It released its hold on Twitch, who quickly rolled to put out the fire on his cloak.
"It's ruined!" he despaired, "I swear, if Keziah has had no trouble this whole time..."
"Shall we go outside again and check if he has found an entrance at the top?" Cassius suggested.
"Sure, let's check the body first though."
"Looking for loot, thief?"
"Yeah," replied Twitch defiantly as he walked over to the Chuul's carcass, rubbing his hurting arms. The smell was awful, so he didn't bother looking under too many tentacles before he decided to just retrieve his knife and cut of a scale as a memento and potential merchandise.
"Alright," called Cassius impatiently, "let's go outside."

They left the tower to find Keziah and Korruk waiting for them, studying something just above the doorway.
"Did you see this?" the ranger asked Cassius.
"No, I did not. What is it?"
"The spider symbol of D'hala. But it's got this dagger drawn over it in charcoal. Any idea what it mean?"
Cassius shook his head. "I don't, I'm afraid. But at least this confirms that we're in the right place. And those statues inside are probably dark elves then, although I didn't get a good look at them. They do worship D'hala after all."
"That makes this a dark elf tower - they mark their underground territory to the light elves," he added, seeing the others' blank expressions.
"Any trouble inside?"
Twitch just gritted his teeth and walked back in, and Keziah chuckled silently.

Funny Moments