The Land of Thud

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Guild of Witches & Herbalists

Started on 23-05-2002 18:44:20 GMT

They had seen it coming of course, they had known all along, it was they who were watching now.

Three shadows flickered against the rough-shod walls, their eery shapes enough to make the bravest of frogs quiver with fear. The High-Witches of the Guild of Witches & Herbalists muttered amongst themselves, leaning over their cauldron, and waited for the moment.
The cauldron was split-screen affair, with a row of touch-sensitive icons across the top.
Sixteen point seven million colours swirled across the screen, as Ypicitus Swornrump pressed one of the icons.
"I love Thudex GUI", she muttered to herself as the image re-formed to a 'screen', into which it looked upon a place.
"Yes," agreed Helda Truegardener, "I particularily like the way it does that... when you that... with yer finger... and that..."
"Look, stop that you two," snapped Eldorado Sunshineface, "We have more important things to be doing."

It would be a tricky spell, but they had been preparing a long time.
Since the Guild first appeared, eight months and two days ago to this very day (!), the witches had seen many things; and endured more. Having the politico's from next door (City Hall) constantly breathing down your neck is kind of off-putting.
But if it were the price to pay for such a place as this to exist, then it was worth it.
Well, at least Eldorado thought so, Helda and Ypicitus were too busy training the young witches and herbalists to care about such political meanderings.

But Eld, as she was oft-called by friends and the citizenry of Thud, was the first.
She was there in the early days, when threads were bare, and no mention of her name was made, but she had always been there, watching, waiting.
She had hoped, early on, that she could have had the backing of the Council in these actions, but she knew she could not trust Mayor Chegkin III and his Chegwin cronies.

The time had come. Nine-thirty. Not quite dark, but still grim-looking.

She and the others huddled closer around the cauldron and looked at the screen.
The scenery was frightening, she had seen this place before of course, she'd seen it happening.
Small dark-glass buildings were scattered in no particular formation, surrounding the huge machine building that was the Cloning Plant.
The camera panned across the sick settlement.
"Stop!", Eld ordered, Ypicitus quickly moved her hand across the cauldron, and the camera stopped.
"Clever," Helda presumed.
"Is that a Spam Gun they have there?" Eld reasoned, "What a waste of taxpayers money. Switch to internal camera."
Ypicitus did something or other with her hands that Helda couldn't understand.
A room. A small room. Penfold was in a state of excited fear after releasing Ahdkaw with no escape plan of his own. Guards had entered the room and were approaching them wielding their electric whips, toe-screws, and all manner of gruesome torturing equipment. They were grinning.
"Do it," said Eld.
Ypicitus pressed an icon in the top-right corner of the screen twice, in quick succession, and then tapped on the image of Penfold and then Ahdkaw. They disappeared from the screen.

Ahdkaw and Penfold appeared next to the cauldron sat on the nice sofa, Matneee had left it with the witches when he went on holiday. Penfold looked confused.
"Don't worry Penfold," Ahdkaw soothed, "We knew it was coming. Have you met the high witches?"
"Er gosh Danger...! Er...", Penfold stuttered, "No... No, I... I... I haven't..."
"Oh Penfold shush!" Eld span around from the cauldron and shouted, "We need to concentrate now."

"Run the program," Eld stated.
Ypicitus messed with the screen and a graphical representation of the Cloning Plant appeared in place of the camera view. A large spherical force-field grew around the area.
"That should hold it," Ypicitus said plainly.
Eld had already prepared them all a cup of tea when Ypicitus turned to face her.
They would have to wait some before the next spell was required of them, and it was tiring stuff all this spell business.

An hour and fifteen minutes later.
A wide open-topped building dominated the screen, it was dark, but she could still see the carnage happening within, thanks to the newly-installed lighting rigs that dominated the skyline.
The camera panned and zoomed to a small Northern segment of the Death Arena, Arizu could be seen quite clearly haggling for more of those disgusting young-conservative strips.
"Get her out of there," Eld calmly spoke.
Ypicitus pressed the same icon as before twice, in quick succession, and tapped on Arizu. Arizu promptly vanished.
"Where's she gone? When you did that...? You know...? With whojimicallher...?" Helda questioned.
"It's okay," explained Ypicitus, "She's safe. I've sent her to the Happy Farm, I think there's something she should see there."

"Run the field again"
Ypicitus did something again, and the old familiar force-field appeared around the Death Arena.
The screen switched to the external cameras around the Cloning Plant just as the entire area dissipated into nothingness in a huge explosion. The side panel showing a miniature version of the force-field held.

Only another hour and a half later, they were stood around the cauldron once more. Ypicitus shook the cauldron, and the screensaver turned off.
The camera view appeared once more, and the side panel showed the field. It held once again.
"WooHoo!", you know who jumped about. It wasn't Penfold.

"Right, that was fun," Ahdkaw said to Penfold, "Drink?"

Reply on 26/05/2002 16:03:31

Around lunchtime, steps could be heard in the entrance hall of the building. Had somebody been in that room, they would have seen the shadow of a short-ish woman stood in front of the door, with short-ish hair and a slightly large and hairy left arm.

"Heeeelllooooooo??????"

Noetic was on her lunch break and had decided to go on the lookout for some ThudWax (tm) to take care of the hair problem on her newly sprouted replacement arm, but due to a lack of decent shops in the city the Guild of Witches & Herbalists had somehow seemed like the best place to have her hairy arm seen to.

It didn't look like anyone was home, but it couldn't hurt to have a little nosey around the place. Carefully avoiding a sticky puddle of dubious origin, she tested her way through the room towards the back, where she could hear a profuse snoring sound coming from behind a shabby-looking curtain.

"Ahem"

Again, no reaction. Noetic slowly proceeded to open the curtain when a gnarled hand suddenly took hold of her hairy wrist.

"Not you again, I thought my 'Keith-Away' spell had taken care of you lot, at least for now!"

The old woman then looked at Noetic in total and utter surprise.

"What the.....? You ain't no Keith but you've got their arm! Were you one of their prototypes or something?"

Noetic shrugged and tried to wriggle her ever-hairier left arm out of the old woman's firm grip.

"I'm Noetic and I've just opened up my Demonic Petting Zoo and Pet Shoppe a couple of blocks away, I guess I'm pleased to meet you but could you please let go of my arm? That hair thing is already gross enough!"

The old woman grudgingly let go of Noetic's Keith arm and introduced herself as Eldorado, Master Witch of Thud, before offering Noetic a cup of very vile-smelling tea.

After Eld had retold the events of the past night to a now very confused Noetic, she offered her some more tea which Noetic kindly declined. Eld also put out some very tasty cookies, which Noetic accepted as she needed to get rid of that foul taste in her mouth.

"Okay so you put a spell on the Chegwins and got rid of them, but how?"

Eld poured herself some more of that vile tea.

"Unfortunately I can't just kill them off with my magic, they are too powerful for that. I just, well, let me say they've been taken care of. Now those piranhas you were talking about...."

A few hours later, a slightly ill but clued-up Noetic left the building with an appointment to see Elda the following morning in order to get rid of her mismatched arm problem in return for a few of her precious floating piranhas.

Her other arm was carrying a small and cramped hamster cage populated with strangely familiar-looking talking (well, swearing mostly) hamsters. The piranhas would have a feast tonight, and Noetic herself was ready for a hearty meal at the Death of Minds....

Reply on 06/06/2002 00:08:10

a battle raged...........

earlier that day two horabs had brought full mixed companies of manbears, sabretoothed pheasants, snake-armed men, jedi sloths, and razorchickens. that had been quite awahile ago, and it seemed that it hadn't been quite enough, as...

Reply on 18/06/2002 07:53:13

[After my Happy Farm post]

Elderado Sunshineface and Ypicitus Swornrump had returned to an eerily silent but very messy guild hall. Eld looked around and thought about the huge loss of life this place had seen in the last few months, but moved onward through the hall without stopping. There was too much still to do.

The 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th Regiments busied themselves clearing the bodies away from City Street, and washing away the blood. There were no Keiths to be seen, they had noticed this as they went passed the Death Arena and split from the other group. The soldiers didn't know why this was, but they don't need to know.

Eld and Yp go to the far end of the hall, and entered a small hidden passageway, to the unknowing viewer, they just walked straight through the wall. Eld came to a heavy wooden door, pulled out a key from her shawl, and unlocked the door.

The room was extremely high-tech, and the logo of the Th'eik was emblazoned on the left wall. Eld quickly moved toward some kind of communication device. She flicked a switch.

A holoraphic image of some alien form Ypicitus had never seen before appeared in front of Eldorado.
"JKeesy'l Opdyre upswe?", the groteque alien said.
"Thsiuz'ty Eruee".

The alien vanished.

"What the hell?" Yp was confused for once in her life.
"Th'eik" responded Eld.