A Journey to the First Tomb of Rathkeale, Party of Chaos: A Tale of Monsters, Mead, and Mayhem
By Cal “Lord Syruss” O’Leary
**Zip Splat Splort Portal Sound*** A Blue Portal appears out of nowhere in lands that resemble Rathkeale. We join Lord Syruss and his fellow Neden boys Priest Z, Sir Sarrix, Darkin, Jayce and Jean Baptiste.
“O Man…. I had no idea how claustrophobic I was!” Sarrix exclaimed.
Claustrophobic meaning fear of tight spaces or in this instance a certain Neden boys fear of being trapped in the Castle with the madman Sir Naj forcing everyone to party non-stop for the past….four days?...a week? Time seems to be foggy, it has been, to say, the least been a bit rough.
“Where are we exactly?” Darkin inquired after giving out a long exhausting stretch.
“Sir Naj thought Neden could use some training exercises, and thought it be a great weekend to lead you guys around, test out myself as Lord, and give him time to tidy up the castle ‘which is perfectly fine’ he kept saying,” I told the men with a mixture of excitement and concern in my voice.
Excitement for the task ahead, concern for the Naj antics being left behind.
“Ooooo a DUCK!” exclaimed Jean Baptiste as he proceeded to walk away from the rest of us.
“Should we take care of that?” Dresen inquired “I mean he just keeps on walking.”
Priest Z quickly interjected with an important announcement: “ I have an Important announcement!”
We all stared at him blankly. “Go onnnnnnn.” I drew out in a long sigh.
“I am going to meditate for about 24 hours to charge up my magic for tomorrow's battle. I received an image of Syruss being in trouble and possibly being sent to the All. The images are scattered and nonlinear. But because of the non-stop partying I have not had a chance to charge or prepare any spells. Plus I am getting grouchy, Papa needs his beauty sleep.” Priest Z lectured mysteriously and with that and a ball of green smoke he was gone.
We were soon met by Hayden or at least someone who resembles Hayden in every way, this was clearly a Shade. We in Neden have a good deal of knowledge when dealing with shades. You see one of our members is King Shadow, King of all the Shades, a long and very different story. But, the sum of it is we can tell if a Shade is trustworthy and for the most part this one was. He soon told us that this Friday night would be filled with combat and peril. Who doesn’t love a good peril? You see Peril flows through the Realms like a River to the Sea. Every other week there is some sort of Peril! New Villian on the rise; certain Peril. High Stakes Tournament, don’t forget your Peril, BRAND NEW BAKERY OPENING IN A CUTE SPOT DOWNTOWN...you guessed it, Peril.
We would be taking on plenty of undead coupled with finding these crystals to power this crazy portal thing. If they only ask Sir Naj I am sure he could have powered this up, heck if they gave me a crack at it I am sure Naj’s portal crash courses could have allowed me to figure something out. But no, they wanted Power Gems and Undead Massacres.
The night went swimmingly. Jayce was doing his things pickpocketing undead and getting us crystals all with our friend Karmha's help. Me and Darkin swirled around the fields like a Tornado of Destruction dolling out butt whoopins' galore.
*Smash crack!* Darkin swung his sword and marn with vigor. “Syruss I am slain!” he screamed magically as he fell to the ground. I was watching his body being mutilated from across the field and as I sprinted I knew I would be too late. As the final blow landed on his corpse I felt my own body betraying me. I felt my legs give way, my organs beginning to fail, the same magic that bound us in life would also bind us in death. As a Prophet of the All and Dark One's favorite, I am awarded certain privileges. One is watching souls escape the body and return to them all.
Darkin and my soul was being lifted over the battlefield. There I could see Dresden throwing his lightning bolt with newfound precision after practicing with Sir Naj and Sir Quayloth in the offseason. Jayce was working with a group of people to figure out how to defeat a Shade Sagean and Jean Baptiste was intensely following a duck.
Right before Darkin and I were taken to the warm embrace of the All where he would be consumed and I would take my rightful place by the Dark One's side we were transported elsewhere.
I lost track of Darkin but I found myself in front of the large banquet table and an even larger green deity of some sort. Well not one to be rude or to turn my nose up at a good spread I quickly sat myself down.
“Why helllloooooo Mortal!” the Giant Green Blob maniacally said in a long drawn out weird way. “My name is NURGLE, um yessss the Nurgle and I have been watching you.”
“I hope not between the hours of 11pm-1am, them's Syruss Hours,” I said with both shock and disdain.
“HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA ahem hee hee!” Nurgle laughed “No no my dear Demon Lord, I have been watching your Chaotic Exploits for quite some time. It is rather a Shame that the Dark One scooped up your soul so young, you have the potential to be a great agent of chaos.”
“Let’s not close any doors just yet big guy,” I said, noticeably intrigued. “I am open to lines of work, I mean you, me, the good gods, the bad gods, and everything in between goes to the All in the end. What’s a little Chaos in the meantime?”
Nurgle looked me over as almost peering into my very soul. He sniffed me with his long anteater-like nose, the hot breath from his gaping mouth smellimg of fish and stew.
“OK my Neden friend.” Nurgle started to speak as a creepy smile crept across his face. “Let’s see how much Raw Chaotic Potential you have, mayhaps you are the chosen one, mayhaps you’ll bring balance to us all or mayhaps you’ll be my next meal. Just go through these lands as carefree as you do life, wish for everything, expect anything and know that nothing is impossible!”
“Wait what was that about a meal?” I stumbled to ask…
“Never mind that...BYyyyyyyyYEEeeeeee.” His voice trailed off as a bright flash of light zapped me back into my body.
My eyes opened first, I hate when they are the first to come back. I could feel my organs reforming finally the lungs were done, a gasp of air could be heard across the field.
During our time as goo both Jayce and Nahdala were busy at work. Nahdala of Grimloch became I believe the First Official Chaos Scout. Chaos Scout Purple and she was on the job. With her boons in the Chaos land she gave Jayce the needed bump to take out Saegan with mundane means.
With the regeneration process complete both Darkin and I were back in our bodies and we raced to find the rest of the Neden crew. This led us back to where we began fighting off undead as the questing party made a hasty retreat to the tavern. I could only assume they had what we needed for the portal. When we arrived back to the tavern we were once again greeted by Shayden who said we would have to wait till tomorrow to attempt to navigate the perils of the portal….Always Perils.
We as a questing group decided a Night of Libations were in order to celebrate a successful night's work. We defeated a fake Saegan, we retrieved the power crystals, we solved the puzzles and we stomped some undead back into the ground. This was certainly a call for some spirits to raise our spirits.
The night went well with food and singing and friendship, stuff gets fuzzy and then that restless sleep sets in. I awoke to a Jayce ready and raring to go finish what we started.
“This is the situation boss,” Jayce stated as he started to make me aware of things I must have slept through.
Jayce had a game plan for what we needed to do. Basically this Shayden was going to run us through simulation trails after we visited his Rathkeale village.
It was at this village that I acquired Syruss's War Mule, the Realms most Stubborn Ass . Which came into play because several adventurers were trading away limbs which left them unable to heal them for quite some time.
During the time my good friend King Sir K (He is my good friend, I don’t know if those feelings reciprocate, but guess what people I like most of you.) He let me know we were not in the Rathkeale but rather ‘a’ Rathkeale, one of many in a Multiverse of worlds.
In one world you never took that assassination contract and lived a peaceful life, or perhaps you did take that contract and never messed up, or maybe even you were the one the contract was for!!! AHhhhh too scary. But you get it an infinite possible worlds means infinite possibilities of “What if."
This was no different from the time we went through a Slider portal and ended up in the world where Darklore took over. That might have been my favorite place ever and to this day regret leaving. So with no more fear of lingering consequences we decided to make King Sir K the Emperor of the Realms with me, Lord Sir Syruss, as his Warden of the North. And as luck would have it that just so happened to be the world we have landed in, that or the people of the village wanted new leadership so badly that we were met with zero resistance.
This whole wacky scheme somehow led to Sir K becoming a Chaos Scout. Chaos Scout Green was on the case. His name was fitting as I was now green with envy that he got access to Chaos powers and a super cool color to boot. I mean that big Green Guy told me to go nuts and let my inner Chaos run free. Well if I didn’t have access to the Chaos magic through normal means I would use the next best thing: MONEY. There was a vendor selling chaos potions for a random price depending on your luck and favor with the Chaos elements in the lands. This worked out well for me as I was this new Divining Rod of Chaos magic. Each challenge I won and potion sold at a song.
Chaos potion after Chaos potion I kept cracking those cold ones with the boys just to see the world burn….More accurately to see what they did...cause CHAOS.
We lost limbs, whole hours of time, we can heads, scales and special abilities, some lost the ability to talk and me personally lost my abilities to do Vaudeville for a year and a day...drats.
Thoril from Voraniss was having no luck with the Chaos gods and I could tell this was upsetting to him. He asked if he could borrow my innate luck to try and get one of those wacky potions for a song. I agreed to do it for a favor to be named later.
After we navigated the village, convinced them King Sir K was Emperor Sir K and I was Warden of the North, we proceeded to the Graveyard for reasons.
There Neden went right to work. Jayce was busy picking the locks ahead and disarming traps. Dresden was behind me and Darkin as we used our Bonded Blood and newfound ability to get each other back up upon our death to squash through the undead.
As much as I like to give Dresden a ration of caca from time to time, I have to admit he did this old Lord proud. He was on point with his healing, needing to be yelled at very little and more so he was upfront swinging a sword throwing magic and holding his own...Good job lad. Unlike that Sarrix who was nowhere to be seen and even more untimely that BatSyruss menace showed up. People often confuse me and him and I don’t know why, but, boom, proof is in the pudding we were right next to each other so there is no way we can be the same guy. Anyway that BatSyruss was being a nut with a scared sentient sword but together they managed to take down a lot of undead.
*Slash swing!* BatSyruss's sword cut through undead like insult cut through my fragile ego… BatSyruss was a force to be reckoned with just as deadly as they say, in fact without his help we surely would have joined the dead in the Cemetery of Rathkeale.
The day was getting long and the heat began to rise in the air like balloons escaping a careless child's hand. The heat was all around us and the undead feeling little of this effect took advantage and pressed us hard. The cemetery took longer than expected as Jinx and Jayce were working on this number puzzle that had no lie a million different combinations...probably.
Not only that but we were fighting with Sir Bones.. Well there were two Sir Bones and we were fighting one of them. Once we were sure who was the real Sir Bones and who was Sir Prosthetic we quickly put down the imposter….To which we may have been wrong.
Sir Nos took this opportunity to use a Chaos Boon to teleport A-BONES, not sure which one, to see the Gods of the Chaos pantheon. Kohrne was there being a jerk, Tzeentch was there, Arioch of course, Nurgle, and many more.
“How did you see all that if Nos disappeared and you were in the cemetery?” You may ask.
Because for a brief moment I too was there surrounding the circle with the rest of the gods. Just another piece of evidence that I am either A) a god myself or B) just that badass. Arioch who was in no mood to see me however quickly ported me away.
Back to the cemetery. The questing party had finally finished the puzzle and we got the real Bones back so win win. Bones and Jinx had merged as Chaos Scouts Bones I believe for the wacky fighting and Clone thing and Jinx because of her Chaotic Numbers skills probably. Either way to recap we have thus far:
Nhadala: Chaos Scout Purple
Sir K: Chaos Scout Green
Sir Bones: Chaos Scout Black
Sir/Lady Jinx (she’s a knight ok whatever she picks): Chaos Scout Blue.
We went on to fight and fight and fight some more and when we thought we were outclassed a hero emerged: the fifth Chaos Scout. Aryss had shown up and was all the Rage..no seriously she was full of Rage her fighting was flawless as she moved through the field striking down brainless undead. Her patterns were chaotic in nature and seemingly only controlled by her unbridled rage. Chaos Scout Red had taken the playing field.
But where does this leave me? I pondered, as I demanded Chaos boots from the gods, yes that’s right I wanted chaotic footwear. As the scouts were calling for their Boons and I was calling for my Boots a voice appeared in my head.
“Keep up the good work Chaos Scout Death..Or Silver...I am not sure if we were supposed to just do a color thing...you know what, whatever makes you happy champ.” Nurgle’s creepy voice could be heard. “Seek out Shayden as soon as you kill all these undead chumps."
After the cemetery was an exercise in defeating Shayden's top guard; a Shade version of my good friend Vuel. After a fun fight with Fuel, to which he was slain, I became the new Top Guard and the REALMS BAMF...kids ask your parents what that means. Once that was said and done and I got my official belt buckle we were on our way.
More Undead plagued us and we thought we had reached our limit...we were wrong, so very wrong.
We would have traded what we were about to face with a hundred thousand more undead. We would have all rathered slept in a pile of Dresden's dirty laundry for a week or listened to a million more of Gumbo’s anecdotes than have to step up to the plate against this creature made from nightmares.
There before us in the field stood a thirty foot chaos creature, with millions of eyes and tentacles and razor-sharp teeth.
“If you have seen enough Teng Huanese puppet shows as I have you know this is going to get gross and awful real fast.” Sarrix’s voice could be heard. But again he was nowhere to be seen. BatSyruss, however, was busy hacking off limbs, but for every limb taken two more grew. Darkin had the bright idea to try and stab the creature's heart, which on paper is not a bad idea, but he attempted to get the heart from the inside. So boldly he stormed the creature, leaped into the air and was swallowed whole. I could feel our bodies being digested because of our link so I knew I didn't have much time. Something needed to be done quickly.
Thankfully as Sir K was striking down two fierce undead he called to his Fellow Chaos Scouts.
“Chaos Scouts ASSEMBLE!” Sir K Bellowed.
Out of nowhere and with newfound acrobatics Chaos Scouts came flying and flipping through the air all landing side by side.
“Chaos Scout Purple reporting for duty,” Nhadala said as she landed a triple backflip from out of nowhere.
“Chaos Scout Black!” Sir Bones said flying from the shadows.
“Chaos Scout Blue here and ready to fight!” shouted Jinx and she back-handspringed into action.
“Chaos Scout Red!” Aryss gleamed as she slaughtered one last undead for show
“Chaos Scout Green ready to finish this Foe!” Sir K echoed as his fellow Scouts landed by his side ready to fight.
“And Syruss for some reason” I stated as I was once again magically transported where I was needed most.
With our combined power a massive white lightning-like energy started to form all around us. As they all put their wands in the air and me my club the energy left our body and struck the beast.
*Crack KABOOM!* The energy strike was immense and a large screech could be heard from our foe. The creature tried to muster a few more steps at us, maybe out of defiance, maybe muscles refusing to die, but then suddenly and all at once the creature slumped to the ground.
“Congratulations my five Chaos Scouts….Erhem, six Chaos Scouts because of Syruss for some reason.” A gurgled disembodied voice could be heard. “ON to the next task.”
“We did it fellow scouts!” I exclaimed in joy to my compatriots.
“GOD DAMMIT” Sarrix's voice could once more be heard in the distance.
We were quickly escorted by Shayden to the next encounter. A Capture the Flag with a twist where all the undead would attack the Flag Carrier. After a small mishap where Darkin took the Flag for about a half a day in the wrong direction we were then back on track.
Sir Nos had a brilliant plan to use the flag as a trap luring Undead in one at a time and it worked. We were quickly through that room and onto the next encounter.
One last push and one last skirmish with undead. Jayce was busy at work with Karhma utilizing this magic lasso we got to finish the puzzle and open this mysterious tomb.
While Nhadala and I both used one more Chaos boon to bypass the highly enhanced CoP security. The Chaos gods attempted to pay her with coin and me with her personal Scout Wand of Justice to which I refused...she did not as her pockets were soon lined with chaotic gold.
The Mummy sprang into action and we went to work on this undead. It was super strong however and dispatched most of the Chaos Scouts. Luckily I had the power of the BAMF buckle and could bypass him. I grabbed one of his loose wrappings and gave Jayce and Dresden a wink and a nod. They knew what to do, quickly Dresden threw a lightning bolt at the foe *NO EFFECT* then Jayce jump in the air and slapped the taste out of the mummies mouth. Like a really good open hand slap-a-rooski. This worked! This enraged the mummy as it chased them around the field not noticing me firming anchored to the ground grasping at one of its wraps.
Smaller and smaller the creature got till it was no bigger than Darkin’s boot line and with a sinister grin, Darkin brought down that boot and ended the threat.
“Congratulations you guys have won…” Shayden was cut short by a violent explosion. Parts of him went flying everywhere and bits of his shade went in my mouth, I mean come on I was standing right there mouth open Chaos Gods what the hell.
“What the, where the, why am I here..Syruss?” The real Hayden was now there confused and pantless.
Sir K and I explained the situation as we walked Hayden back to the small keep on the hill.
“Well we are supposed to be in Rathkeale for the party I am throwing,” Hayden said frantically and confused.
“I got that covered.” I stated and I pushed my Naj Position System Button summoning a portal to Rathkeale.
There we were met by tons of our friends missing from the adventure. Mathies was there, and Zarine and Kira, heck Shandar brought tons of his Crew, Saegan was there and so wasn’t a few more friendly faces. Heck we even ran back into Jean Baptiste who was covered in way more blood than a duck could have produced.
We celebrated the weekend's victory with a feast of epic proportions. There was pulled pork and Mac and Cheese, meatball subs and much much more.
During court, Neden was given an opportunity to speak to which I thanked Hayden for the amazing time and presented our Petitioner Darkin with his N making him a full member of Neden.
Hayden gave a title to Adam so that he may govern Rathkeale in his absence.
After court the true party began. Neden dominated Beruit almost completely uncontested, the songs and poetry session was amazing, and we sang and drank the night away.
In the morning as we were sobering up Naj started kidnapping us back to Neden castle one by one so we can continue this insane drinking conquest he has us on...I wonder if he is trying to distract us from something.