Solo Warrior 13: Ugly Goes To The Bone

[Bungleau]

Back to Chapter 12 - - - Back to the Beginning

Leaving Ishad N'ha, Missy Hissy headed up to Dragon Spire. She'd seen the firebeast before, and she wanted to try the Dwarven King's armor. Sure enough, it enabled her to withstand the beast's heat, and she quickly disabled it. She poked around a bit in the Spire, discovering some giant funguses that looked like brain corals and spewed poisons like the giant salads; a couple of firestorms that she had learned as a samurai soon safely took care of them.

She still wanted to take care of Scanthril before moving on, though, so she headed back. She went north to where Grunaxe was last seen; at least she'd be able to placate the dojo master for a bit. She came across a lake, and forded into it with her horse. Occasional small schools of piranha attracted her attention, but it was quiet out... almost too quiet.

As she rode around a clearing on the other side of the lake, the ground in front of her seemed to rise and disappear. Stopping, she stepped side to side to watch what was going on. The perspective didn't seem quite right, so she moved ahead slowly. As she reached the top of a small hill, the ground dropped away to nothing. Looking down, she saw an opening below her, and rode her horse around the side.

Looking up, she muttered to herself. "Good thing I wasn't riding fast," she said. "Otherwise, I'd be nursing a broken neck, and perhaps a broken horse." Sliding off the horse, she unslung her sword and began to head down the opening to see what was below.

As she closed the door, a sudden bad feeling came over her. As she whirled around to try to get back out, a raspy, almost stupid-sounding voice called out from behind her. "Trapped you, my pretty. Youse nots gets away now," the voice cackled.

Turning again, she saw a huge misshapen creature, green of skin and rough of complexion. She assumed it was female; it was wearing some kind of chest covering, but she couldn't be sure.

"What's going on?" asked Missy. Without answering, the creature cackled and pulled a lever behind her. Missy felt the floor move and jumped, and then jumped again when she realized the floor was going away. She dropped into a cage, where another misshapen creature began to cackle at her as well.

Suddenly, she remembered where she'd heard of these creatures before. She'd overheard two travelers talking about Boogres, great huge creatures that made up in brawn what they lacked in brains. This one seemed to be different from the other one; it seemed like she had more authority. As Missy approached the Boogre, she suddenly realized that the female was casting a curse on her! Backpedaling furiously, Missy tried to cast any offensive spell she had, attempting to break the Boogre's spell, but to no avail. Not even the powerful firestorm she'd learned did anything, and with the Boogre's last words ringing in her ears, "... to Boogres!", Missy fell to the floor as the powerful curse began its work on her.

Groaning and thrashing, she felt her armor becoming tight and quickly loosened it. After a few minutes, the agony stopped and the Boogre laughed from the other side of the cage. "Checks on youse tomorrow," cackled the Boogre as she left the cage area. "Spell be permanent then."

Spell? Permanent? Missy grabbed one of the potion bottles in her pack and looked into its reflective surface. "NOOOOOOOO!!!" she screamed. Her face, while not unattractive for a rattkin, was now the hideous mottled green of a Boogre. Looking down, she saw that her lithe athletic body was now the dumpy muscled mass that defined the Boogres she'd seen thus far. She'd been caught; she was now a Boogre, and there was no known cure.

But maybe not! The Boogre had said she'd have to wait until tomorrow, until the spell was permanent. She still had a chance, if she could just get out of this cage. Another Boogre, one who'd been assigned to guard the cell, came over by the locked door.

In a few minutes, Missy sweet-talked him into opening the door. Sliding through, Missy began exploring. Soon, she came across more of the vicious mantraps she'd seen earlier, except she didn't think their huge bodies would fit in the narrow caves. Inspecting the cooked corpses (would the wonders of firestorm ever cease?), she decided they were a smaller variation of the mantrap, perhaps a swamp rose or jungle lily. Smaller they were, but just as deadly.

Still exploring, soon came across Grunaxe's ghost. At least she now knew the reason for his disappearance, and the dojo master would leave her be for a bit... The ghost told her where to find his body and equipment, and after dispatching the giant crayfish that had killed Grunaxe, she found that most of his gear was rotted and only his ring was still in good shape.

More exploration found a series of teleports, each of which wrenched her gut and exacted a price in blood. Groaning as she made her way through the last teleport, she came across a Boogre, the one who had dropped her into the cage to begin with. Before she could exact her revenge, the Boogre, Prisk'iela, began lamenting about her departed Grunaxe. Having already appraised the ring she'd found and found it wanting, Missy offered the ring to Prisk'iela, who was so excited she turned around and opened the door leading to Skeser Da's chambers. Skeser D'a, Missy had learned, was the Boogre Queen who had cursed Missy to begin with, apparently along with all the other Boogres in the cave.

Missy slid into the chambers to the sound of a low, deep, thunderous rumbling. As she stopped, she identified the source of the rumbling – Skeser Da herself, sleeping and snoring like she was in a contest. Catching a glimpse of her own Boogre-ized face, Missy felt her blood begin to boil, and sent a firestorm down on top of the sleeping witch. Perhaps it wasn’t playing fair, but the witch had started it…

Unfortunately, the firestorm wasn’t quite enough, so Missy stepped forward with her magical katana and finished the job. Expectantly, she looked into a reflective shield, but saw no change. The witch’s curse persisted even after her death. Muttering and debating whether she should raise Skeser Da so she could be killed again, Missy picked up the ornate eye that Malgrim had told her about, and headed back to where Prisk’iela was.

Rather than face the teleport traps again, Missy decided to take the other path out of the chamber and soon found herself face-to-leaf with more of the junior salads. Backpedaling furiously, she called up firestorm after firestorm, cursing the Boogre curse that in turn caused her spells to fail. Eventually the salads were burnt, and she crept forward, finding a small room with holes in the wall, holes that looked the right size for the wooden rods she had found earlier.

After sticking rods in for a long time, Missy decided that she either had too few rods, or she needed a lot more brains to get it to work. Looking up at the two passageways above the stick room, she realized that if she jumped just right, she might be able to climb up. That is, as long as nothing else was trying to catch her…

Gathering her breath, she stood below one of the passages and jumped as high as she could. She nearly reached the top, and tried again and again. After a few tries, she managed to climb the rest of the way and headed out of the passage to the world above.

On to Chapter 14

[ 02-26-2003, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: Bungleau ]

[All High Monkey0]

Hurrah! A break to the missy drought! thought i'd say some words of encouagement as no-one else seems to be posting about it, bravo missy! It seems somewhat brief though, usually the story's a little more in depth.... Still i wanna read more! Does missy get her ratty looks back or will she forever be boogreised?

[WillowIX]

That´s what I want to know! Are you playing a single boogre at the moment Bungleau? LOL. Great story! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[ 11-29-2002, 06:54 AM: Message edited by: WillowIX ]

[kev]

You've got us guessing now. A Boogre is a good option to stand toe to toe with a 2 headed giant. Or are you not going to send a rat to kill a rat?
I can't wait for the 14th installment of the Missy Hissy saga.

[LiOnHe@rT]

heehee, this is getting WAY interesting!!!