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Discussion Final chapters of Game of Scales coming right at ya!

These pages were slipped anonymously into my in-tray. How Mysterious!

Game of Scales Part 3 Chapter 1 - An Exfoliation of Exposition

“It all happened in Lustria in The Late Middle Times. Not quite the End Times, but there were some who were wishing they would hurry up. The annals of history related in detail the fateful happenings in Klodorex, City of Eternal Judgement and Jewel of the Panaa-Manaa Isthmus, but for casual student it was sufficient to know that the Council of the Wise (and Associates) was called following the untimely death, of natural causes, of Chief Th’saurik’acex. Slann Lord Txlanputin presided sternly over the anxious Lizardmen who had answered the call –”

“Why are you referring to yourself in third person, Lord Txlanputin?” asked Chief Hyerborean.

“I am referring to myself in third person because it adds gravitas to my expository monologue, old bean.”

“And do you actually know what “gravitas” means?”

“Thats easy,” coughed Priest Ndege through a cloud of incense smoke. “ ‘Gravitas’ is the force that makes a piano plummet onto a skink chief and crushes him to a fine paste. But how is that regarded as death from natural causes?”

Lord Txlanputin squinted through the votive murk. “As Chief Th’saurik’acex’s unexpected replacement, Chief Y’ttar Scaletail has already explained, it is quite natural to pass into the Great Realm Beyond the Great Plan when one has a piano dropped on one.”

“Expository monologue? Are you sure that is safe?” ventured Chief Scalenex carefully, all the while keeping an eye on Slann Lord Tlacnatai who was observing the stairs leading up to the conference chamber. And everything else.

Txlanputin risked a sodden glance in the same direction. “I thought I would take advantage of the fact that Slann Lord Da'rk-IV went on a mission with Y’ttar and is missing, presumed dead, like everyone else who has gone anywhere with our new companion. All this “Show Don’t Tell” causes me a certain amount of ennui.”

Chief Hyperborean blinked. “Do you know what ‘ennui’ means?”

Cough cough “Isn’t that what Scar Veteran B’ob does?”

“Nailed it,” muttered Scalenex.

“What was that, old chum?” asked Txlanputin brightly.

“Oh yes…. I said, ‘I fail to see how this advances the plot of Xholanka the Not-Quite-So-Lost-One and his return to Lustria’.” He nodded towards with new ethereal friend who stood staring towards the Temple of Tzunki, where B’ob had been so recently “dispatched”.

“It does bring up an interesting point, though,” mused Slann Lord Txlanputin. “Y’ttar gained his promotion when Chief Th’saurik’acex was accidentally killed by a falling piano-”

“Or was assassinated by a falling piano,” added Lord Chekhov.

“Yes, or was assassinated by a falling piano. And then Chief Y’ttar went with Lord Warden and Chief Pendrai’q to assist the defence aginst the Greenskin Armada, where both were lost to a nautical mishap-”

“Or sabotage,” added Lord Chekhov.

“Or sabotage. Then Y’ttar went with Skink Chief Cro’sfoot, Slann Lord Bow’xa, and Saurus Old Blood Qupakoco and the entire military cast of Klodorex to face the Dark Elf menace to the south, but only he returned, bringing with him this evil Rose Thorn individual who has opened this daemon portal which is causing so much bother. It smacks of-”

“Treachery,” added Chekhov.

“I was going to say, ‘jolly good luck for young Y’ttar.’ He is surely the luckiest amongst us. Now he has gone off with Lord Da'rk-IV, Saurus B’ob and that Jamjar Kroxigor fellow in a hopeless quest to gain the lost Old One Tzunki’s favour by means of prayers-”

“Or murderous blood sacrifice.”

“Or murderous blood sacrifice. I say ‘good show’. If anyone can get promoted, survive a nautical mishap, return with a daemon host and offer prayers it is our chum, Y’ttar Scaletail.”

“Or alternatively,” added Chekhov. If anyone can assassinate, sabotage, betray and murder, it is the shadowy Y’ttar Scaletail.”

“Lies! Lies!” came a voice from a figure who was dragging himself up the stairs.

“Y’ttar!” exclaimed Chief Hyperborean. “You look like a drowned rat!”

“Lies! Lies!” replied the drenched and heavily cowled skink chief.

“I see you have returned alone,” noted Scalenex. “I take it your mission was a success.”

“Lies! Li… Just give-give me a moment to formulate-make up an answer to that.” Y’ttar shook himself like a … rat … and soaked the concerned onlookers with dirty canal water. “Ahem. Did you think-consider that my task-mission was to invoke the soggy-wet Old-One-Thing to save the city from daemon-invaders by raising the canal and flooding it with river monsters, even at the death-cost of all my fool-meat companions? If so, then my squeak answer is No. And yes.”

“No and yes?”

“ ‘No,’ the Wet-One has no care for lizard-fools and ‘yes,’ all of my fool-meat companions are dead. Of natural causes.”

“Excuse my intrusion,” called Tlacnatai the Observer. “But I have observed something.”

“Again?” moaned Scalenex.

Tlacnatai continued. “It is just that the giant saurian who appeared from the chaos realm and whose rhyming reign ended tantalisingly short of the first ever Lustria-Online Poetry Competition, hosted by Slannta Clause, fell into the Panaa-Manaa Canal and splashed a lot of water and a goodly amount of river monsters into the city, where they are now starting to devour the host of daemons.”

Xholanka the Patently-Not-Currently-Lost-One clutched the parapet and stared at the leviathan battle below. “I don’t understand. My brother, Tzunki, is remote from me…”

“But not from those who hold to their faith,” murmured Scalenex at his elbow.
 
Game of Scales Part 3 Chapter 2 - A Drainage of Dragons

“Warden’s sea monsters are doing a jolly good job with the daemons from the warp portal,” noted Slann Lord Txlanputin. “Just as well considering that the entire military caste of the city of Klodorex was mobilised to respond to a diversionary threat from orcs and goblins, before forced-marching south to respond to a diversionary threat from Dark Elves which was in itself just cover for our real enemies, the evil twins Rose Thorn and Esurc.”

“Yes, the sea monsters are more than a match for the daemons,” agreed Tlacnatai the Observer, “but have you observed that gurgling-slurping noise?”

“What gurgling-slurping-noise-sound are you squeak-talking about? The diversionary threat from the daemons should be covering a boring-tunnelling sound, not a gurgling-slurping sound.” Y’ttar scampered out to the balcony to join the observation-fest.

Scar Veteran Discomute of Blitza, who had not spoken for several chapters, raised his eyebrows. Before he could ask the obvious question, he was interrupted by Txlanputin. Maybe next chapter, Discomute.

“Boring-tunnelling?” asked the drizzly slann lord.

“No-no…yes-yes. Boring-tunnelling is very boring-dull. We should squeak-talk about something else. Bamboo, yes-yes? Does anyone like-like bamboo?” Y’ttar was being unusually evasive.

Suddenly the gurgling-slurping sound rose to a sudden crescendo like all of the privies in the Mountains of Mourn suddenly flushing simultaneously, and then the canal water and sea monsters suddenly drained out of sight. This left a large number of suddenly bemused daemons unoccupied and with the run of the city. All of a sudden.

“That was sudden,” observed Tlacnatai. “It’s as if the water drained into a network of secret tunnels hidden under the city-”

“Lies-lies-”

“-and the water and monsters have drained into them-”

“Possibly-possibly-”

"- and there seems to be a lot of terrified squeaking-"

"Probably-probably-"

“-and the monsters will obviously go to where the tunnels originated-”

“not-not Scavenblight! No-no! I don’t-not mean 'Scalenblight'-.”

“-where they will reap havoc and untold destruction.”

“Oh poop-mahrlecht, what have I done? I mean 'someone-else'. Yes–yes what have they done? What has that bad-evil not-secret-undisguised perfectly normal lizard-thing that isn’t-not me done?”

Slann Lord Txlanputin laid a comfortingly blubbery hand on Y’ttar’s shoulder. “Don’t fret, old chum. Where one plan fails another can succeed. The city can still be won.”

Y’ttar shook himself free and stepped back, facing the entire remnant of the Council of Eighteen with a savage glint in his beady but well shaded eyes. “Yes-yes,” he hissed. “I do have another diabolical plan, but not all of you are part of it. The city-nest will be won for the glory of the Great Horned Rat… Ratted …Hatted… Old-Thing.”

“Oh bravo, old chap! That’s the spirit! Who do you need for your diabolical plan?”

The hooded skink silently raised a finger and stabbed it towards Skink Chief Hyperborean.

“Me? How flattering,” said Hyperborean. “What will the others be doing while we enact your brilliantly diabolical back-up plan?”

“Their time has come, yes-yes. Let them go down into the city to slow-down-delay the daemon-things until it is too late to stop me, mwahahahahahaha!”

“Don’t you mean ‘us’,” asked Hyperborean.

“Yes-yes, of course. Us. You are needed. For now.”

“That settles it,” declared Scalenex. "I will help Old One Xholanka with his sudden existential crisis, Y'ttar and Hyperborean can do I’m-afraid-to-ask-what and you others go and stop the unstoppable hordes of Hell." He shooed the slann(s) Tlacnatai, Chekhov and Txlanputin, priest N’dege and Scar Discomute towards the stairs.

Lord Chekhov clapped his fat hands together. “Excellent. I have just the thing for stopping unstoppable daemons.” He began opening small drawers and compartments in his palanquin. “No, not here. Or here… Or here either.” His face turned ashen and he looked up guiltily. ”Oh dear, It would have been perfect, but I seem to have left it somewhere in the First Act.”
 
I'm sure that Y'ttar chap hasn't been gathering the twelve fangs of the darkling choir, the fire jewel of harah, the wyrd plaque of N'kk'tini the mad Skink priest, the whisper of thirteen thousand woes, the five lost songs of ascension, and the one true flute of the true Horned One, in a bid to enact a dark apothesosis into a daemon, demi-god, or perhaps even a full fledgling deity.

I'm sure brave Y'ttar is merely summoning an army of cloaked Skinks from his temple city that will turn the tide of this war. As much as i'm sure Hyperborean isn't only there to paint a suitably heroic portrait of the noble and brave Y'ttar.
 
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