Hammer 10: Stealthy as ghosts in the night, Diamond Cascade and his noble companions crept through the tunnels. The terrible sounds of battle drew close, and finally they emerged upon a scene of terrible blood and destruction. In a desperate last stand, the valiant gnomes had pitched their last hopeless defence against the underground gates to their hidden city. Crashing against them, legion upon legion of dark dwarves and elves lay waste to all around them. Without thought of their own lives, Diamond Cascade and his friends threw themselves into the fray, but was this some idle assault? No! For the gnomish priest had seen that the roof of the great cavern in which this battle raged was held aloft by massive stone pillars. With one mighty spell, the pillars were brought down, crashing among the foul invaders, crushing many beneath their stones. As Diamond Cascade and the mighty Stalker took the enemy from behind and gave battle to the wicked priests who led them, the roof followed down, further battering the enemy. Without thought to their own safety, Diamond Cascade and his valiant followers gave chase, laying into the enemy left and right as stones and boulders crashed around them, bringing righteous and bloody justice to these foes of all that is proper and good. With a  single blow, Diamond Cascade slew the dark elf priestess who led the army; with their fellows crushed among the stones and their leader slain, the dark legions crumbled and fled, racing away into the tunnels and shadows with their tails between their legs. Thus it was that Diamond Cascade and his band of heroes brought salvation to the gnomish people and earned their eternal gratitude!

Yeah. Might have happened something like that. Might be that Diamond Cascade and his noble companions stumbled into the edge of the battle with hardly a clue as to what was going on except that it was very dark and what little light there was really didn’t help very much, and for all we know the gnomes were kicking dark elf butt. It’s true that we brought the roof down. The Gnome did that, I think. And I think that probably killed more dark dwarves than it crushed gnomes. Probably. Anyway, it seemed to sort the whole matter out. As for finishing off the priestess, well, I couldn’t say now who actually landed the killing blow on her. Stalker certainly had a good go at it, but got taken out by the horrible snake-staff she was carrying. Might have been a stone from the falling roof that finished her, or maybe it really was me. Don’t know. As for having no thought for our own lives, well, I for one was paying attention when the dark elf wizard with whom we didn’t make any deal at all was telling us what magic she and her bodyguards were carrying, and I was damned if I was going to let that slide and end up buried forever under a ton of rubble. Snake staff isn’t much use, but I’m sure we could sell it. Nice cloak, though. Nice gloves, nice gauntlet, and a very, very nice sword. I might even give Buttpoker to Stalker…

Must find another way to describe my so-called friends. Noble companions is getting tired, I think.

NEXT WEEK: SOME GREAT REWARD

Hammer 10: It’s amazing, sometimes, how life turns out. Take the psychotic dwarf, for example. He’s battled his way through the tunnels of the under-dark from the Mountains of Wherever to the Inn of Gnomish Mishaps to deliver his warning (apparently circumnavigating the entire gnomish kingdom in so doing, which, in hindsight, would explain his latterly apparent navigation and map-reading skills). He has followed his priest, joined with a band of strangely random sell-swords and misfits, travelled across the surface that he hates and has still, eventually, delivered his warning to the gnomish people. He has then followed his priest on a mission of almost certain death to deliver a crippling blow to the leadership of his enemies. He has watched his priest fall to goblin swords, and yet he has persevered. He has led a band of utter lunatics, stupid enough to follow him, yet querulous, argumentative and mocking. He has led them through tunnels he knows that are now riven with creatures he calls his mortal enemies (although in the case of this dwarf, ‘mortal enemy’ does sometimes seem to be a broad church that encompasses anything that breathes). He has faced dark dwarves, goblins, orcs, ogres and dark elves and he has spilt their blood upon the blade of his axe.  And then, almost within sight of his destiny, close enough to touch it, a bear sits on him.

Is there a lesson to this? Apart from not standing in the way of a bear that’s going toe-to-toe with a mushroom with tentacles? Yes. Life is futile, random and ghastly. Take what you can and get what you can get. Before the bear sits on you.

Bizarre, but the one person who seems to care about this (beyond the horrible realisation that none of the rest of us have the first clue how to get back out of here) is Shifty. Or maybe he was just looting the body in particularly dramatic style.

I hate this place.

NEXT WEEK: TERMINUS EST

Hammer 10: One thing Diamond Cascade won’t do in the epic tales of his exploits will be to blunder into yet another cave full of dwarves, get ambushed by them, get into a huge fight, kick their arses only to have a vast gang of mutant goblins, half of them with too many heads or too many hands or too many wings, mouths, tails, you name it, too many of anything, show up along with some flying dark elf wizard. There’s absolutely no way that Diamond Cascade and his noble mateys made some sort of deal with ANY DARK ELF WIZARD AT ALL, even one who’s lit up with magic like a candelabra in a Gammersbridge brothel. There’s no way at all that any of this happened, and no one was promised the magical-loot of the dark elf priestess if we happened to murder her. No bargain of any sort was made. In fact, no such wizard existed.

And if he did, he wasn’t called Ilkius Venaar.

Ah, crap, it’s not like we weren’t going to go and do exactly the same thing anyway.

NEXT WEEK: MAGIC MUSHROOMS

Hammer 10: …until finally they reached the first scouts of the fiendish ARMY OF DARKNESS, the vicious DARK ELVES. With ruthless strokes, Diamond Cascade and his comrades stalked and slew these foul versions of the fair folk above and crept ever closer to the heart of the enemy.

Look, when you’re a human and you’re a mile under the ground and you can see jack shit, spotting a black-skinned elf wearing black armour, sitting on the back of a black lizard that happens to be hanging from a black ceiling with lots of black darkness in between you, it just doesn’t work, right. I begin to see why dwarves and gnomes live in these holes. Because they can. Because it keeps them away from us and us away from them. So we’re creeping along, bumping into walls and generally getting on each others’ nerves (The Gnome, it seems, has taken particular issue to the stories I sing of Diamond Cascade, back when we were in civilised places. Remember civilisation? Where a good bit of singing gets you a meal for a night instead of getting you attacked by an army of giant spiders and dire bats? I remember civilisation. Even my poet’s soul can’t find words potent enough to express how much I’d rather be there than here. Anyway, I keep telling The Gnome that they’re just stories, they’re not meant to be about us, exactly (well they are, and that’s pretty obvious, but The Gnome is a gnome and dim, right) but she just won’t shut up about it) when we hear the sound of rushing water. Great, a place to throw The Gnome and shut her up, but you know, the sound of rushing water turns out to travel an awful long way in a cave, and by the time we get there, I’ve temporarily forgotten about hefting people into rivers. So there we are, great big chasm, rushing underground river, long rope bridge vanishing into the darkness ahead. And I’m happily lollopping across when this fight breaks out, and all I know of it is there’s shouting all of a sudden from The Gnome and Wolfgirl (who can apparently see in the dark too) about something on the ceiling and then there’s people shooting arrows up at god-knows-what (hint for archers: don’t shoot arrows straight upwards, especially at a lizard you can’t actually see) and then the next thing is The Gnome casting some spell and the next thing after that is this huge lizard thing with a screaming black elf plunging past me and crashing into the river along with assorted bits of cave roof.

Now, you all need to know this: Not everything you’ve heard about dark elves is true. But I don’t know that. All I see is a falling magic shop plunging into the river, and so I’m out with the rope and grapple I keep handy (you would too if you were in these tunnels), trying to reel that sucker in before he vanishes into the inky depths. First throw was a good one too, got him nice and fast. Only trouble is, I guess I didn’t reckon on how strong the current would be and I’m still thinking too hard about how much magic this dark elf must have to let go of the stupid rope, and half a second later, that’s me over the edge and into the water as well. All in my chain shirt and sword and everything. I’m too busy trying not to drown to really listen in on the conversation behind me, but there was way too much talking and not enough throwing rescue ropes for my liking. I guess I could have reeled myself in to the lizard and floated off to gods-knows-where on the back of it, dark-elf treasure and all. The only one who does anything is the mad dwarf. Just as well it was a good throw.

NEXT WEEK: THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY

Hammer 9: Through many perils fought Diamond Cascade and his noble companions, for the Underdark is a vile and wicked place where only the foulest of creatures dwell, those that cannot bear the light above, or have been driven to this place for there is no place above that will abide them. Through all these our valiant heroes fought, for no foe stood taller than they, and no danger could overwhelm their brave hearts and noble purpose…

Blah-blah, blah-blah blah-blah. There are a few reasons why not much of this is going to make it into the epic tales of Diamond Cascade and his heroic deeds. At least there’s a reason why there won’t be any detail. Can you guess? It’s because it’s all pissing dark down here. Have you tried wandering around an endless bunch of caves with nothing but a few lanterns? Can I see anything? No. Mostly what I see it rock, a few feet from my face. Don’t mind small cramped spaces, but this is like living in a coffin. Then there’s the constant tripping over stuff I don’t notice, banging my head, bashing my elbow. Yes, I got some light armour on which probably saves me from a concussion every few hours, but by the end of the first day I’m black and blue from bruises and quivering. I want out, back out. I want out bad. It’s fine for the mad dwarf and The Gnome, who can see in the dark and are used to living in holes in the ground. As for the rest of us, though… I’m surprised Wolfgirl hasn’t gone completely mad.

And then there’s the critters who live down here. The first lot we run into are a gang of dark dwarves trying to bring down a huge bear. Don’t know why. Don’t know what the bear is doing down here either. Looking for a place to hibernate? Largely we stand around and watch while the bear makes a mess of the dwarves (yes, it’s a seriously big bear). When it’s done. Wolfgirl makes friends with it and fixes it up. From that point on, half the time what I can see ahead of me is bear butt. Woo-hoo.

Then there was the half-cat half-octopus thing that seemed to shift about. In the dark. Which we could barely see in the first place. I don’t think half of us even had a clue there was something there, just lots of screaming. I saw a shadow or a flicker of movement and swung a sword at it. Not sure I hit anything at all. In the end, the bear sat on it, which made a right mess. Displacer Beast, I think. Heard of those back in North Horn Ridge. We take its skin. Which stinks and probably lures out every scavenger down here. At some point I think we ran into a couple of goblins, but the psychotic dwarf had them smeared across the stones before I even knew they were there.

About the only place where I can actually see my hand in front of my face without having seizures from all the lights bobbing about the place is some cavern full of glowing crystals. The dwarf gets all twitchy about moving on and not picking anything up, which is a red rag to a bull if ever I saw one, and anyway, it’s light enough I can see for once, so I hang around. True, there are piles of skeletons about the place, so maybe he had a point. Anyway, there are all these glowing crystals and some of them are broken, and so I figure, whatever lives here, it probably doesn’t care too much about the broken stuff, so I pick one up and mend it, figuring I might walk off with it, and that a glowing crystal might be a handy thing to have in a place that’s pitch black. Certainly doesn’t make my eyes sting as much as one of the lovely smoke-machines we call torches (and I think we might be running out by now). The next thing you know there’s this monstrous crystal creature rising up out of the earth and we’re all pissing our pants. Apparently I did a good thing, though, since it doesn’t smash us into pieces, so as soon as I recover my wits, I ramble on at it about our noble quest to save the underdark from crystal-smashing despoilers. It might have bought this, it might not, but it doesn’t seem to mind me helping myself to a rather nice-looking silver comb. It has some protracted conversation with The Gnome. Surprisingly, the result isn’t a dead gnome.

NEXT WEEK: LUCKY FISHING MAGIC GAME

Hammer 9: Slipping in secret into the baleful dominion of EVIL that is the Underdark, Diamond Cascade had thought to enter unnoticed; but no, for he and his less stealthy companions had been FOLLOWED, and by none other than the evil servitors of the dark dwarf Durmijeron! Yes indeed, the servitors that Diamond Cascade and his companions had already once put to the swords! Against the swift senses of Diamond Cascade’s friends, however, these two creatures of wickedness could not long keep themselves concealed and were soon exposed. A mighty duel of swords and arrows and sorcery ensued, but Diamond Cascade and his companions were soon victorious. The foul troglodyte’s attempts to escape were quickly thwarted by Diamond Cascade’s mighty sorcery. Begging and drooling, the pathetic wretch offered Diamond Cascade wealth and power. He spokes of Axolim, the great green dragon whom they serve, who has brought them back from the dead and who grants his servitors tokens and favours to aid them in spreading their wickedness. Unrepentant, the monster left Diamond Cascade with little choice but to kill him for a second time.

So we go down some rickety starircase at the back of some cave that the mad axe-talking dwarf reckons is some sort of emergency exit. Presumably in case of fire or something. He claims to have a map and to know where he’s going, but he hasn’t a clue about the map and keeps contradicting his own directions. And yet we follow him. Why? WHYYYYY??? I suppose there’s some sort of underlying certain belief that he’s a dwarf in some tunnels and so he must know where he’s going. So we’re arguing about all this when Shifty hears something following us and slips back to investigate and yes, there they are, the two tits from the ruined tower north of Neverrest. Yes, the ones we killed once already, Troggy and Dogboy. There’s arrows and magic missiles between me and the halfgit and Troggy and Stalker and The Gnome have at Dogboy and his warg. Doesn’t take too long to bring them down. Troggy tries to hide, but here’s a clue for you thief-types: Trying to hide from a wizard (or in fact anyone who can do any magic whatsoever) who’s looking for you? DON’T CARRY MAGIC ITEMS! One Detect Magic cantrip later and he’s wriggling at the end of my sword-point and his magic scarab-pendant is in my pocket.

And yes, these offers of gold and gems and magic and territory if we were to join up with ‘the greens’ were all very tempting. Two slight little problems I have with this: Firstly, I think this whole malarkey about an eternal war between a pair of dragons is a pile of tosh (although that doesn’t meant here’s a bunch of people loaded with gold and gems and magic and stuff who are pretending to be a pair of evil dragon overlords). Secondly, if it isn’t, I can’t help thinking that butchering a baby green dragon and slicing it up for its saleable body parts might count against us. Anyway, apparently this pair of idiots have been tracking us ever since we killed them the last time to find out what side we’re on. It gives me some pleasure to think they might have had to suffer gnomish pranks and pixies too, and then Shifty, reading my mind, sticks a knife into Troggy. From the dead he came, and back he goes. If he want’s to tell his green scaly master whose side we’re on, good luck to him. I imagine he leaves as confused as he arrived. Do we know what side we’re on? Do we even know there are sides? Did we have to choose? We’re all on our own side – what’s the chances we’d even all pick the same one? Well, great green dragon, if you’re listening, I’m on the side of limitless wealth and power, of endless wine, women and song.

One thing: He seems to recognise Stalker. Calls him Boduku, who was apparently supposed to let the ‘greens’ into the dwarven stronghold of Dwarf Mountain (OK, OK, it has a proper dwarfish name that I can’t remember and couldn’t pronounce anyway). All this, of course, would have happened before Stalker lost his memory. Now this is probably all desperate bullshit in an attempt to sow bickering and discord among us (which just goes to show that he hasn’t been following all that closely to he’d know there was little more he could have done in that regard). But still, it does have an annoying ring of possibility to it.

Before we can question him any more, Shifty stabs him. I’m glad. It’s all very well having Stalker’s dubious past trotted out for all the rest of us to laugh at, but he’s not the only one with a history he’d rather keep to himself. Don’t trust Shifty, but boy is he useful to have around when you secretly want someone stabbed and can’t quite bring yourself to do it.

NEXT WEEK: AIMLESS WANDERINGS IN THE DARK

Hammer 8: Foul and vile as the enemy were, the army on the surface was not the true peril facing the noble race of gnomes. No, ’twas the vile legions of DARK DWARVES and BLACK ELVES, their souls twisted by evil, servants of DARK GODS and FIENDS and FOUL BLACK SORCERERS, every one of them twisted by the black magic that leaks from the lower planes of wickedness into that wicked place, the UNDERDARK! Finally Diamond Cascade and his brave champions of honour and good reached the edge of the MOUNTAINS OF EVIL and the forbidding caves that marked the entrances into the foul under-realms. Without pause for thought, sworn to save the kingdom of the gnomes from falling under the sway of evil, Diamond Cascade and his friends set forth into the darkness, into the heart of evil itself, set upon bringing death to the leaders of this ARMY OF DARKNESS. And thus began the first of Diamond Cascade’s Great Adventures

Yes, our band of self-serving thieves and anarchists did indeed follow a mad dwarf who spends more time talking to his axe than any of the rest of us and is set on dying a glorious death in battle at the earliest possible opportunity. Yes, we did follow him into the butt-end of a cave and happened to find some tunnels. Why? Why follow a deranged dwarf berserker into the under-dark? You know why? Because we couldn’t agree on anything else to do. How pathetic is that? Nevertheless, thus did indeed begin our great adventure into the under-dark, in which we were, largely by accident, of some small use to the kingdom of the gnomes and their bizarre monarch, Heapofcrapthatsitsontopovus. Or whatever his name is. And you know what? We’re right back where we started. Right back near the caves where we came for bat-shit all those months ago.

NEXT WEEK: OH NO, NOT YOU AGAIN

Hammer 7: Bold and daring, yet stealthy as a shadow, Diamond Cascade slipped into the very heart of the enemy camp, intent on learning their numbers. With all the intelligence needed to defeat the foul creatures of darkness, Diamond Cascade slipped away, silent as the night, and yet he was not alone. Another creature has also taken it upon themselves to learn the foul army’s strength, a lady of unsurpassed beauty, with skin of scaly bronze – none other than one of the great dragons that protect the land! With a wink and a nod to one another, Diamond Cascade and the dragon-lady crossed paths and were on their way.

I forget when it was. At some point we took a slimy captive. Turns out our new halfgit friend can talk slimy. Don’t remember whether it was the slimies in the day or the slimies in the night when we took one alive. Slimies in the day, I think. Asked it a load of questions. I think we even had some idea of getting it to lead us to the army it came from (Why? Why would we do that? Why are we going towards the army or orcs and slimies and gods-know-what? Because last I heard, we were supposed to be following a homicidal dwarven priest who was going to lead us to some caves that would take us down to the Underdark where we could fight our way into the middle of an entirely different army. An entirely different army made up of grey dwarves and black elves, half of whom are priests or wizards. And it’ll be in the dark. And miles underground. In tunnels. Where we won’t have a clue where we are. And the dwarven priest has gone to meet his dwarven maker and now we’re following an even more homicidal dwarf who talks to his axe. Yes, you may wonder why we’re looking for this other army, or even for any army at all. But we’re certainly not looking for one made up of orcs and slimies. This is not the orcish hordes we are looking for). Eventually some sense prevails and Shifty sticks a knife in the slimy and sends it off to slimy heaven. If only he’d follow up with The Gnome.

Of course, seeing as we are so amazingly competent, we nevertheless find the army we’re not looking for anyway. Admittedly, I say this as though it was some sort of random accident, but I’m not really a woods and wilderness sort, so for all I know, Wolfgirl led us straight to them under the mistaken impression that this is where we wanted to be. Close run thing as it is, we spot the enormous noisy smelly army only just slightly before they spot us. Trouble is, we’re really stupid, and also cold and hungry. For some reason largely related to the presence of food and warmth within the army camp and the distinct lack of it anywhere else, Shifty and I have this daft idea of sneaking in for a closer look and maybe helping ourselves to some food and blankets. And then let’s not talk about what happened next. We’ll not talk about the being spotted well before acquiring any such warmth or food. Nor about being chased by a gang of orcs and slimies, nor about hiding up a tree and feeling really smug and clever about giving them the slip. Certainly not about the dead branch I happened to hold on to and the being shot at and having nowhere to run. Frankly, if it wasn’t for the dragon-lady showing up and scaring them all off, there’s a good chance that the epic poem of Diamond Cascade would have come to an abrupt end right there and then. As for useful intelligence about the army, well, it’s big and full of slimies and orcs and ogres, right. And it’s still not the army we were looking for.

NEXT WEEK: GOING UNDERGROUND

Hammer 7:  It’s getting rough out here. You’d have thought that we might at least have earned a good night’s sleep after slaughtering slimies. You’d have thought the gods might have smiled on us for that. But maybe they thought hey, there’s a band of brainless tits who think it’s a clever thing to camp down in a forest in the middle of winter in close proximity to a large army of orcs etc. Let’s remind them of all the oh-so-many reasons why they’re wrong. Yeah, there’s nothing like shivering down for a kip in the snow, shagged senseless from a hard day wandering across the icy wilderness and kicking slimy ass only to discover you’re so cold you can’t actually sleep even with enough blankets wrapped around you to look like a small hill. Other bands of wandering sword-slingers, I hear, have wizards or priests who can create magical shelters and can create food and water and warmth. What do we have? We have Holli. Fair play to her, though, she does try to keep people warm at night; it’s just that I’d rather be kept warm by mysterious arcane energy than by a randy gnome. Even the army had, for example, tents and hot food (maybe it was more mud than food, but at least it was hot). What do we have? We have, er… cloaks. And blankets. In the middle of winter.

So yes, maybe we shouldn’t have lit a great big fire when we’re well within the scouting range of an enormous army of orcs and slimies and gods-know-what, but before long it’s either that or freeze to death. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that I finally got warm enough to get to sleep just in time to be woken up in the middle of the night with someone screaming something about ogres and nine-foot tall monsters stomping about the place. They hit hard, too. I see Stalker and Shifty go down one after the other. Like everything else, though, ogres go down when you stick them with enough arrows. That’s what you get for wrecking what little was left of my sleep, you fat-bellied fuckers.

NEXT WEEK: THESE ARE NOT THE ORCISH HORDES YOU’RE LOOKING FOR

(aka Hammer 6: A Fond Farewell to Captain Liability)

…and then, of course, the scouts of the ARMY OF DARKNESS itself creeping across the land. Against these, Diamond Cascade and his companions fought battle after battle, slaughtering goblins, orcs and even ogres in droves. Diamond Cascade himself personally slew dozens of these evil soldiers of corruption.

Yeah yeah yeah, but not before we spent an entire day being annoyed to shit by some dumbass pixies. HELLO small helpless-yet-hard-to-hit annoying things? Does it occur to you to to go and bother the great big army of orcs and goblins and ogres and so forth with your intensely irritating little pranks? Does the thought cross your eeny-weeny little thoughts that maybe, what with orcs and ogres and slimies being a pretty foul-tempered lot, you might for once in your otherwise futile little lives actually even achieve something useful? A reminder, little pixie-folk: We’re talking about orcs and ogres here. Not slimies. Slimies, yes, well, I can see how you might like to let them in just for the fun of annoying them into killing each other other. But orcs and ogres are another matter. These are creatures who will smash your forest flat if no one stops them. You might get a giggle or two out of them on their way, but in the end they’ll leave you with nowhere to hide. And then they’ll pull your wings off to floss with and, eventually, stick you on a skewer, roast you alive and eat you. But no, no, little pixies, instead of sowing discord among people who would like to rape you and then eat you, you’d rather annoy the nine hells out of us, the only people you’ve actually seen trying to stop them.

So, pixies. You remember this day. Remember it well, just as I will. One day you can rue it.

This all started in the morning and just kept on going. By the time we ran into a gang of slimies, I don’t know what I was more grateful for. Having something to take it all out on, or that something as scary as – oooh – a couple of dozen slimies was enough to scare the little winged jackasses away.  Apparently there were a couple of other things, but I was mostly busy with the slimies. Man, a good slaughter of the little buggers was just what I needed. Cleared my head nicely. Got a nice bow off one of them too. Must have been quite a fight somewhere where I wasn’t, on account of how battered up everyone else seems to look. We’ve lost a dwarf (no great disaster), and the walking liability that was Tiarth appears to have blundered off into the woods. After an hour of searching, we’re pretty sure he’s not dead, on account of there being no body. We’re also pretty sure he doesn’t want to be found, on account of him being a blind elf with extra-acute hearing, and us making slightly more noise than the approaching army. Don’t know what we did, but frankly it’s all one great big sigh of relief all round that we won’t have ever have to experience the sheer jaw-dropping horror of watching a blind man throw a greatsword at a stuck-in-the-mud owlbear before then wading in to apparently try and wrestle it to death. No, bye-bye Tiarth Friend-bane and good riddance.

It’s an imperfect world, so of course we don’t get to butcher a band of slimies and ditch Captain Liability without there being some small price to pay. It seems the goblins had some lunch they hadn’t gotten around to eating yet, some doubtless annoying little halfgit woman. Gives us a reason to head south and abandon our current quest, but we’ve abandoned so many before getting very far that you know, just for once, I think we should at least get as far as the Underdark before we realise what a colossal mistake we’re making and run off to be ineffectual somewhere else.

NEXT WEEK: SLEEPING IN THE WOODS IN WINTER