My name is Shu and this is the story of my most honourable grandmother.
Sosha and her allies defeated the frost giants. My most honourable grandmother was humbled and admitted that the front line of the marching order was no place for a sorceress, even one as powerful as she had been in her prime.
While the rest of the party searched the dead giants for loot, Nim felt a curious tugging at this edge of his mind. Warily, Nim followed the arcane thread back to its source, which seemed to be on the other side of the cavern wall. A small, gnome-sized hole yawned invitingly in the icy surface. Reluctantly, Sosha and the rest of her companions followed Nim into that dark, foreboding tunnel. The tunnel seemed endless, but eventually, Nim called back that he saw a light ahead, an exit from that cold, claustrophobic space.
The party reached the end of the tunnel and found themselves looking out across a vast, trackless desert. Nim extended his arm across the threshold; the skin on his hand immediately began to blister, whilst the rest of his body continued to shiver with cold.
“Some sort of portal…” the wizard mused, “Perhaps a pocket dimension. How curious!”
And because curiosity has killed as many gnomes as it has cats over the years, he scrambled through the portal into the desert beyond. Sosha and the rest of the company had little choice but to follow suit.
The vast, desolate sands seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, the only landmark a small, stone bunker some 300ft away from the portal. Unsurprisingly, the insistent tug on Nim’s mind was originating from within that ominous edifice. Sosha and her allies shed their winter furs and began the arduous trek beneath the baking sun. About halfway there, the ground erupted beneath their feet and a gargantuan worm burst from beneath the sand to swallow Nim whole. The rest of the heroes watched in horror as the diminutive wizard disappeared down the beast’s gaping gullet. What my most honourable grandmother did not know, as she and the others ran around like headless axebeaks, was that the moment Nim felt himself slipping down the worm’s throat, he polymorphed himself into a bumble bee and buzzed back out again. It was only as Nerox prepared to leap into the beast’s mouth and ‘rescue’ him that NIm resumed his normal form with an apologetic wave.
There is an ancient proverb whispered by the wisest of my ancestors; “the higher the challenge rating, the harder they fall” and this proved true of the giant desert worm, which could not withstand the level of violence that Sosha and her allies unleashed. The massive, slimy carcass began to sink below the arid ground from whence it had emerged and the party continued their jolly jaunt across the monster-infested dunes.
Inside the stone bunker stood two faceless statues, as still and patient as the grave. Between them was a third humanoid figure sculpted from sand. Nim felt the source of the arcane thread throbbing within the sculpture’s breast. Reaching into the sand, Nim’s fingers closed around a piece of smooth wood about the size of a playing card, set in the centre of the panel was a sparkling diamond. The artefact rose into the air and hovered in the centre of the room, a moment later it was joined by the two artefacts that had attached themselves to Nerox and my most honourable grandmother. The three relics spun lazily in the air, pulsing rhythmically - almost as though they were communicating with each other – before floating back to their respective owners.
Suddenly, the ground underfoot rumbled and a long crack spread across the wall of the bunker.
“That relic must have been acting as an anchor to hold this dimension in balance!” Nim marvelled, “Now that I’ve removed it, this world will collapse upon itself and cease to exist! How curious!”
“Time to go!” Gorr roared, tucking the wriggling gnome under his arm and racing back toward the portal.
A hole appeared where the stone bunker had stood, the eye of a vortex that drained the desert like water down a plughole. Sosha and her allies reached the portal just in time to leap through before it winked out!
