Goatword: Entry 2

7/28/2019 Goatword: Entry 2

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Paul! Lang

Goatword

Entry Two: The Tower of Garthose

You rumble up the first fifty stairs before getting tired and wondering if you should actually

go home, then you hear footsteps behind you.

Like any tree-venturing adventurer, you ignore the footsteps and decide to keep climbing. Ignoring

serious threats has never steered you wrong before, all the same, your face won't stop itching. It even

begins to sting.

Anyway, you keep on rumbling up the stairs until you get to a round, wooden platform. Set in the

center of the platform is a pie. You decide to observe the pie more closely and see what kind of pie it is.

PIE DESCRIPTION:

Yonder pie is piping hot. Its crust is sprinkled in fine, white sugar. The sugar glistens like so many

sweet, delicious diamonds. Through the slits cut from the top of the pie (Why are there slits cut from

the top of the pie? Someone once told you it was because if you don't do that, the pie will explode in

the oven) you can see into the eyes of lush, cherry goodness.

You take a sniff of the pie. It smells like apple pie. That's actually really weird.

What action will you take?

1.Eat the pie

2.Put the pie in your Key/Ration bag

3.Destroy the pie for a good reason

4.Destroy the pie for a dumb reason

5.Speak with the pie

You select action number four.

BANG!


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SPLAT!

You cast the pie down into the deep, kicking it with your heavy sabatons, not daring to touch it, even

with your gauntlets on.

Cursed evil pie! What kind of devilry is this?! A cherry pie that smells like apples! For all you know

it could taste like pumpkin pie, and wouldn't that just be great? No, it wouldn't.This pie was far too psychological troubling for you. You hope that this is the last of the trials,

because you don't think you can stand anymore.

Not wanting to think about the ordeal anymore, you march right up the next hundred stairs and to

the next platform. You can still hear the footsteps behind you. In front of you is a 'Sap Monster'. It is

just about your size and looks almost like you, accept that it is made of gross brown sap. It has two

huge, yellow eyes and no face. Its arms are thick and full of sappy muscles. It squints its evil eyes and

looks at you, then it makes a gurgling noise and advances.

You choose to attack the sap monster before it gets to attack you!

WAM!

You slap it in the face with your gauntlet, expecting it to shriek and run away. That doesn't happen.

Actually, what happens is that your left hand gets stuck in sap. Well this is just great. You try really

hard to pull your arm out, but it won't happen. The sap is seeping down your arm, and you can feel it

making your sleeves all wet.

The monster gurgles again.

You attempt 'Celestial Radiance'! It still has no effect whatsoever.

You monster tries to bite you!

You block it with your other hand.

Great! Now both of your arms are stuck in sap. You are pretty sure this is the third worst thing that

has ever happened to you.

You stand around awkwardly for a few seconds with the monster writhing about. Now that you are

already stuck, it doesn't seem able to really do much of anything. You decide to keep walking. You drag

the sap monster of five flights of stairs, writhing and growling. It is kind of heavy. You are starting to

get exhausted, but at the same time, you are starting to like the texture. It feels kind of cool to have

your arms in a sap monster.

Suddenly, the worst thing imaginable happens: Your face starts itching again!

OH DEAR UNHOLY PANDEMONIUM!

OH DEAR UNHOLY PANDEMONIUM!

This is definitely the SECOND worst thing that has ever happened to you. You push through your


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exhaustion and scramble further up the stairs, hoping to find some salvation.

On the next platform, you find a treasure chest. You hope that the chest contains some of 'Dr.

Sandro's Patented Sap Remover!'. If you were a bit wiser (which you obviously are not) you would

have brought some with you.

You wind up with all of your might and kick the treasure chest.

CRASH!

The pain in your crushed toes briefly distracts from the itch on your face. The treasure chest pops

open. Inside, you do not find 'Dr. Sandro's Sap Remover'. Instead, there is a huge, yellow eye with

veins, a hundred razor sharp teeth, and some tentacles.

You found a mimic!

Oh crap!

The mimic tries to eat your butt. Fortunately, your butt is too far away.

The mimic chomps down and swallows the sap monster. With a hiss, the sap monster vanishes down

the mimic's throat. The mimic hacks two or three times, then chokes. It looks like your problems took

care of each other! Hurray for not having to fight your own battles!

Unfortunately, there is just enough sap left to keep your hands from moving, also, your face has not

stopped itching. Only one thing to do, keep going up those stairs.

You climb fifty or so more stairs. You stopped counting at fifty anyway. You stop and look over the

edge of the next platform. The bottom of the tower is very far away. If you fall, you will probably die.

If you die, your face will stop itching. . .

You decide to discard this morbid thought. In reality, you put it in the very back of your 'Mind-Log'.

Better save the thought just in case. You never know what item you might need on an upcoming quest.

Other than thoughts of itchless suicide, there is nothing on this platform. You proceed to the next one.

On this platform, you encounter a Wood Golem. This creature is fifteen feet tall and made of old,

rotten logs. Set on its head are two green emeralds, its eyes. You are guessing that this creature has

probably been here for ten or a thousand years. It is probably the boss of this tower, left behind to guard

whatever treasure might be hiding at the top, whatever the spectral luminescence is leading you to,

whatever sits on the lap of that poor, distressed damsel.

You forgot about the damsel. You hope that she has long fingernails and can use them to scratch

your face. Is that a weird thing to want? The long nails thing is less of a pure damsel thing and more of


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a dark sorceress thing anyway, isn't it? Who knows. You won't find out until you kick this Wood

Golem's splintery butt. Time to go into battle!

The golem plants its feet and growls at you by rubbing its ancient wooden joints together. The

golem's moan is a taunt. It is beckoning you to make the first move. You scout the golem for weak

points. A golem is a non-living organism. It is a worker built by someone adept at the magic craft; allthat is to say, it doesn't have traditional vitals or weak points. It will keep fighting until you find its

'Phylactery' which contains the magical essence of life that keeps it going. The wizards of old were

capable of making their phylacterys very small. It could be almost anything. A smart wizard would

probably hide it somewhere randomly deep inside the chest or head, but the wizards who make

phylacterys don't have a reputation for being subtle. The weak point is probably one or both of those

shiny green eyes.

Since magic is useless and you can't seem to separate your arms from one another, you decide to use

a 'Sword Technique'!

No. You do not have a sword. You named that skill slot when you thought you were going to be a

swordsman. When you went and found a sword master, he tried to make you practice with a lame

wooden sword first. You were hoping that you'd start off in a life or death duel of sweat and blood, and

you'd move on quickly (after sparing your fellow student's life, of course) to testing out swords by

cutting through piles of convicts, samurai style. You really weren't expecting to dance around with a

stick of oak. It was all foolish. Anyone who uses a sword is a fool, that's what you think.

Sword Technique is really just a name for all of the coolest and most special ways you've thought

off to punch the crap out of things.


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You choose to use your 'Haymaker' technique, since it requires a simultaneous hit with both fists

anyway. You jump high into the air and come down on that golem!

You look down into his emerald eyes as you come down. This dude is so toast!

You slam both fists down and wait for contact!

POP!

The contact you make is with his thick, splintery arm. He swings it at you in response to your

haymaker. The clash is astronomical, astronomically disastrous. He swipes you aside like a horse fly,

and your fists barely even make a clinking sound as they beat against his armory bark. You land on

your back in extreme pain, but quickly jump back to your feet. That was some serious damage. Two

more hits like that could kill you.

The haymaker was apparently not the wisest choice. It isn't the most damaging of your sword

techniques, and it only has about a 0.47% chance of actually making the target into hay. You thought it

might happen more easily since the enemy is made of wood. Hay is made of wood, isn't it?

Your chances of victory look slim. If this dude comes after you and really tries to kill you, you

probably won't survive. You are about to go into a crisis of despair, then, something unexpected

happens. A loud, obnoxious sound rockets from your arms and makes the Wood Golem jump! You

jump too, and almost fall off the platform. What is that sound?

The sap between your arms is quivering. Could it be?

It seems that whatever was left of the sap monster has caught a case of acute bronchitis. That is so

weird. The sap between your arms is coughing. Sap coughs loudly, it seems. It also seems that Wood

Golems don't like the sound of coughing sap. Who would, I guess. You will use this to your advantage.

You will always use everything to your advantage. This is the kind of man you are. You're the kind of

bloke who could be toe to toe with the Arch Lich himself and be like 'Look, is that a coin?' and he'd be

all like 'Where?!' and let his guard down. Then you'd kick him right in the phylactery! You decide that

this is what you will do if you ever come against the Arch Lich, if there is an Arch Lich. You are not

fully sure how Liches rank themselves, or even if they like to be ranked. All that notwithstanding, it is

time to get down and dirty!

The emotional strength that comes from getting this edge is enough to re-empower your tired

muscles. You tear your arms free from each other. Now you have two, sappy, coughing fists. Krotar

would be proud. You should nickname yourself 'Trev of the Coughing Sappy Fists'. No you shouldn't.

That is a stupid name.


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The golem quakes before you. Time to choose another sword technique.

You select the 'Shining Fives' technique. Using your power of light magic, you illuminate your fists

and dive in, letting them lead the charge!

(For the sake of clarity, the fact that the fists are shining doesn't really make a difference. It still

doesn't make a difference. This technique is really only special because you put all your heart, soul,

lungs, brain, spleen and liver into these punches. The light is for dramatic effect)

You pop into the air and pound the Wood Golem hard in the face, your sappy arms hacking and

choking as you swing. The wood is most rotten up here on the face, and the head caves in like acollapsing cave when you make contact.

BOOM!

The Wood Golem collapses. It lays on the ground, dead and limp. Its eyes rolls across the floor. You

crush them nonchalantly with your foot. Actually, you try to do that, but they are a lot harder than you

expect, so you pick them up and put the in your Key-Bag. The golem is dead. Happy day!

VICTORY!

For killing the Wood Golem, you gain seven hundred and sixty seven experience points!

Level up!

You reach level 17!


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You gain two strength point(s)!

You gain one defense point(s)!

You gain three attitude point(s)!

You gain one groove point(s)!

You gain five sitting down and standing up quickly point(s)!You gain fourmath-doing point(s)! Maybe you can finally solve that algebra problem about the

trains!

Additionally, you learned how to lick your elbow!

Additionally, yourreading level increased to SEVENTH GRADE!

All this for punching some wood in the face. You are pretty pleased with yourself.

Speaking of faces, yours has a hankering for some rough surfaces, and that dead golem looks pretty

rough.

What will you do?

1. Rub your face on the golem



You choose to rub your face on the golem.

SWEET, DARK NEXTHOZE! THAT FEELS GOOD!

Your face has stopped itching. Your life has meaning again. Also, the sap on your gauntlets seems to

have melted off. Everything is going your way!

. . . Wait a second.

Why did the sap melt?

Your gauntlets are sizzling, and sappy smelling steam is filling your breathing space.

Was this one of those Acidic Wood Golems that you've read about before?

You hope not.

You decide it is best not to think about it, and you head up the next flight of stairs. As you go, you

begin to see the ceiling of the dungeon, and for an instant you see a flicker of light; perhaps the kind of

light normally emitted by a normal spectral luminescence. You dash up the next round of stairs like


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nobody's business. You don't come to another platform. It seems that the uniform pattern of stairs and

platforms ends here, but there are still a lot of stairs left.

As you climb the stairs, your face begins to itch again. You scratch your face without taking off your

gauntlet. It stings! There is definitely something acidic on these gauntlets! You really should take care

to learn some Libra-ish spell or something. It would be good to know that something is covered in acidBEFORE you rub your gloves and face all over it. Maybe there will be some kind of antidote at the top

of the tower. The inscription below said that the treasure at the top was stupid. A little bit of 'Dr.

Sandro's Acid Remover' would qualified as stupid, as far as treasure goes.

You finally reach the top. You come to a wide platform with a golden chest in the middle. Off to the

left, there is an exit to the outside of the tree, and another set of stairs.

You open the treasure chest. Inside, you find;

Bryant's Super Evil Staff of Channeling

Yup. This is a pretty stupid treasure. You knew Bryant. He wasn't anything so special. He definitely

wasn't in any way worthy of being called 'Super Evil'. He used to fart on your sabatons when you

weren't looking and then tell you that your feet smelled. That might possibly be called evil, but

certainly not 'Super Evil'. That's for like necromancers and stuff! Also, how exactly did the ancients get

ahold of Bryant's staff? Weren't they around like . . . a long time ago or something? Isn't that what

makes them ancient? Whatever.

You take Bryant's Super Evil Staff of Channeling and put it in your Key-Bag. Maybe you can use it

to fix a TV or something. You know for a fact that this piece of trash can't be worth any more than two

or three bronze tails. The nerve of those ancients! You had to fight a golem! You may have melted your

face for this piece of trash!

Maybe there is something better outside. Maybe there is some Acid Remover outside. You go out

and see. The luminescence goes up before you. It waited at the exit. As you walk up this new set of

stairs, the light hovers gently in front of you. You are being led someplace, that much is certain. This is

not a chase, the light knows you are following it.

Out here, there is nothing to stop you from falling to a wooded death. There is no railing. One slip

and you will fall just as far as you climbed, which is pretty far, apparently. The entire forest below

looks like moss beneath you. Around it you can see miles and miles of flat, grassy planes. In the

distance you can see the village of Valtgard with its red tiled roofs and brick walkways. From here it

mostly looks like a big splotch of blood. If you survive this dumb venture, perhaps you'll go there next.

The light leads you to the great, wooden head of the Garthose Tower. It is flat up here, and there are

battlements carved into the wood, slits for archers. You had no idea that this tree tower was really more


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of a tower tree.

There isn't much to look at on the top, only a whole lot of magical carving, elaborate rings and

diamonds carved with runes. They all make up one great pattern that spans the entire ring. If you had

studied harder in school, maybe you would know what these runes meant; but you didn't, so you don't.

The runes glow a soft green as you step over them, though nothing happens to you. It appears that therunes don't do anything. You are used to magic that doesn't do anything but look nice, so you don't

question it too much.

Over at the edge of the circle, there is a hanging rope. You run over to inspect it. You gaze down

over the edge of the tree. Don't lean too far, or you'll die! Careful!

What is that down there? Is that a person? It looks like there is a person hanging on that rope!

Your hero instinct kicks in and you begin to pull this poor person up. Maybe they are still alive!

Your adventurer instinct kicks in too. Maybe they are dead and have loot! Your face instinct kicks in

too. Maybe they have some of 'Dr. Sandro's Anti Acid Cream' or whatever it was called.

You tug and pull and tug and pull and the person, who is surprisingly light, is almost to the top.

Suddenly, someone taps you on the shoulder. You quickly turn around. Remember that person who was

following you earlier? You forgot, didn't you? Well he didn't.

To Be Continued

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Goatword: Entry 2