“The Proving Grounds: Broken Rules”

The kobold gazed forlornly at the leering gargoyle faces decorating the titular well at the center of the Well Chamber. The surface of the water was heartbreakingly still.

“She can’t still be alive,” said the kobold, whose name was Hubert. “How long has it been?”

“I dunno,” said the intellect devourer lounging casually nearby. “Feels like years we’ve been waiting here.”

“Check her again?”

The intellect devourer, who had not until recently had a name (but who was now apparently named “Eidey”), gave a deep psionic sigh. “All right, fine.” There was a brief, sharp whine. “There,” he said. “Done. Yep, our high-AC friend is still alive down there.”

“I hardly believe her AC is all that high,” said Hubert. “Did you see that armor she was wearing? That should put her down to at least a three. Maybe even a two!”

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“Jacob’s Ladder: The Entity”

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“Jacob’s Ladder: Control”

Captain Bansemir leans back in her chair, tapping her lips with steepled fingers.

“Perhaps,” she says.

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“Jacob’s Ladder: Lunatics, Asylum, etc.”

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“Jacob’s Ladder: Bête Noire”

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“Jacob’s Ladder: Meet Hamilton Warhawke”

After only a short time in transit, the Bitching Betty on the peoplemover begins displaying a track failure warning for the conduit ahead. It goes on to hypothesize a number of different possible explanations for the warning, but it’s clear that we don’t need any of them, because the one clear explanation for our predicament here is “Hamilton Warhawke.”

Hell, we could have done without the Bitching Betty altogether. Hamilton’s presence is profoundly obvious to the naked eye. As the peoplemover coasts us toward the disruption at a cautious speed, we catch a glimpse of him, silhouetted against the glare of a magnesium lamp, an Aryan shadow wielding a five-foot motorized chainblade. With disturbing gusto, he brings it down and down again upon the track before us, a gesture more suited to your average flamboyant axe-murderer than to a proper naval officer. Harsh, bone-jarring clangs meld with the squeal of tearing metal in a sort of infernal chorus that boils and echoes out of the conduit ahead and washes over us as we creep forward. LOLcat covers her ears. A purely theatrical gesture, of course, since she doesn’t technically have ears, but I feel a pang of sympathy for her nonetheless.

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“Jacob’s Ladder: Oh Hai”

The problem started, as usual, when our holographic shipboard catgirl filled my personal head to the brim with fuller’s earth in a botched attempt to improve its functionality.

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“The Proving Grounds: The Naming of Swords”

“Okay,” said Kelli Thunderhold, Paladin of Righteousness, clanking mightily from every last joint in her platemail as she was functionally towed into the Well Chamber by a small and furry kobold. It was not, in Kelli’s mind, particularly paladinesque behavior to be “towed” anywhere, but needs must as Hextor drove. “You keep on telling me that your friend Seamon is interested in ‘drowning’ me. I’ve kinda been, y’know, working on the assumption that you don’t actually mean he’s literally interested in drowning drowning me, because you’re being really perky and friendly and everything. But on the off chance that just maybe, all this is due to my kickbutt attempts at diplomacy earlier, p’raps you can, like, tell me what it is you’re actually—”

This was the last thing that Kelli Thunderhold said before she was seized about her vambraced leg by a tendril of animate water and hauled bodily toward the grotesquely-decorated well in the Well Chamber’s center.

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“The Proving Grounds: Communing With Your Ancestors About a Horse”

The passageway leading to the Well Chamber went on and on and on.

And on, and on, and on.

Kelli Thunderhold, Paladin of Righteousness, was getting antsy.

“Uh, excuse me?” she said, after a while. “How long now?”

“Not far!” said the little kobold, encouragingly. “Not far at all! Just have to wander a little more!”

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“The Proving Grounds: Diplomacy”

It took me all of ten seconds to verify that the Obligatory Chess-Board Puzzle was not as obligatory as usual.

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