Where's Alice?

From DQWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: The name of the adventure
GM: Dan
Season: Autumn 973 WK

Party

Glutton : My wolf

Employer
Duncan, Hereditary Friend of the Count of the Southern Marches
Mission
employed us on

behalf of the Count, in order to find the Count’s daughter, Alice, who has disappeared. She is not locatable. She is the middle daughter of 3 aged 13, 10 & 8 years. There are no sons.

Location
Ox Ford and Wonderland
Original scribe notes
Media:Snau9302.zip

Scribe Notes

Travel

Flew on shadow wings to Ox Ford in Ranke since speed was vital. Investigated area where she disappeared and eventually located an extra planar gate disguised as a rabbit hole. Re-negotiated with the Count since extra-planar exploration was now necessary.

Entering Wonderland

Entered hole and fell for about ½ an hour, getting gradually slower. Passed lots of little milieus in the walls. Everything in them had no aura although a rock thrown into one knocked the figures around.

Arrival

Landed in a room 100’ x 50’ with 4 doors on opposite sides. A small table with a small door beside stood against the north wall. On the table was a cake and a bottle. After about 15 minutes investigation, the room metamorphisized such that a giant lake covered on end of the room. The lake consisted of human tears, whose source was “Alice”. (During this time we discovered that the Detect Aura talent sometimes gave weird results).

Attacked

We swam across the lake, encountering a giant, intelligent, but loopy, mouse on the way. On the far side, dancing in a circle, were a dodo, a parrot, an eaglet and a duck (all six foot tall). Upon trying to talk to them we were savagely attacked. All four creatures were exceptionally strong and had vicious claws and beaks. We also discovered that spells can back fire even if they work, and Dillinger had a backfire which caused his hamstring to break ! Managed to kill them all, and hence some of the party had roast duck for lunch.

Invisible cat

Investigated the four doors. Eventually passed through one of them into a woodlands area. It was not possible to return. Met an invisible cat who was obstreperous, and was after an opportunity to get one of us off on our own. We didn’t trust it at all.

Giant Caterpillar

Wandered through a mushroom forest. Found a 30’ long caterpillar sitting atop of a large blue mushroom. After a short period of nonsensical conversation, the caterpillar attacked by strangling people with smoke rings. A gigantic struggle ensued, during which most of the party were killed. I eventually kill the caterpillar. Baron Blitzkrieg was only present at the start and end of the battle. Shin Fane was caught while fleeing, but used a Telekinetic Rage to escape. This killed Drover. Dillinger was eaten by it, but the caterpillar didn’t chew him up too much so we recovered the body afterwards.

Strange Magic

Party recovered for three hours. Discovered that healing worked extremely well. A Rank 4 healer was able to resurrect. One side of the mushroom makes you grow and the other side makes you shrink. We take some with us. Shin Fane was found to be suffering from a “Funky Lesser Curse” - we never found out what this actually did. (See also “Attacked” above).

White Rabbit

We headed off north and found a rabbit hole at the bottom of a hill. Vychan couldn’t fit into it so we climbed the hill. A mansion on top of the hill was guarded by a huge dog which licked both Blitzkrieg and Vychan to the ground. We bluffed our way past the frog doorman (who was extremely stuck up) by saying that we had an appointment with the Duchess. While waiting I pulled a rabbit out of my top hat. It had a waistcoat and a watch and said “I’m late, I’m late” and teleported across the room, and then outside and then off. Dillinger went after it. After a while some of us went and recovered Dillinger’s body and resurrected it. He had been pounced on by the Cheshire cat.

Disposing of Duchess’s Mansion : Explored mansion. Shin Fane tortures a sentient grandfather clock. Met the duchess (completely barmy), a burly cook, and a baby. Dillinger killed the baby. Blitzkrieg protests. Drover’s “not exactly happy”. Drover threatens to tip the cook’s stew out. Dillinger set fire to the house. Isil Eth tries to save it, but fails. Party escapes unscathed.

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

Asked the doorman which way to go to get to the castle. He said we can go past the March Hare or the Mad Hatter’s. There are two paths each signposted. Go down the March Hare’s path and find it comes out in a meadow with a house, a long table and the Mad Hatter and March Hare having a tea party. We are very cautious and try to get some information. They attack us and the Mad Hatter kills Blitzkrieg. We eventually kill them both - but discover that they are both regenerating.

Mad Hatter’s House

I go in to investigate the house, and it tries to eat me. Carve my way out. Dillinger sets fire to the house. Chop off the Mad Hatter’s and March Hare’s heads and throw them into the blaze.

Teleport Tree

Back to Frog (we are pissed off). He says go past the Mad Hatter’s. Back to meadow (discovering that the two paths go to the same place !). Find Alice’s tracks disappear into a tree. Touch the tree and get teleported back to the room we arrived in (6 hours have passed since we entered).

Queen’s Garden

Open one of the big doors. It opens onto a rose garden. Take the cake and bottle, and the newly discovered key to the little door and go through to the garden. The roses are silver and being painted by the gardeners. The roses become gold after painting. The Queen and a Royal party arrives, dressed up like playing cards (except for the white rabbit).

Off with our heads

The Queen gets annoyed with the gardeners. “Off with their heads”. They are marched off and executed. We are “invited” to a game of croquet. Drover stuffs up by playing a good shot. “Off with their heads”. The King and Executioner return, and we do a runner, bowling a few guards in the process, up to the castle. The castle guards are obnoxious and won’t let us in, so we head off into the bush.

Mock Turtle

We go past a griffin on a pedestal and find a beach with a Mock Turtle on it (turtle body with the head, tail and legs of a bull). He has a deal for us - if we go get an item for him he will tell us what we want to know. We rest and recuperate for 9 hours. Get given water-breathing mushroom bits. Walk on sea-bed for a half hour, and find object.

Attacked by giant lobsters, Vychan killed, Blitzkrieg blinks out, Dillinger and I kill them off. Return to beach. Mock Turtle reneges so we kill it. Turtle steaks for lunch, Turtle loot found (5 strength potions) and a three hour sleep period, to allow armour to dry.

Trial

Head back to castle. We are appointed jury to a trial of Jack. He’s charged with stealing some tarts. Also present are many of the characters we have dealt with previously (the Mad Hatter thought it a little unfriendly of us to throw his decapitated head into a burning building!). Jack manages to plant the tarts on the less wary and observant of us, and sets the guards onto us, before splitting with the crown jewels. Fight a retreat from the court room and give chase.

Find Alice

Choice between grabbing knave or stopping Alice from going through portal. Recover Alice, but knave escapes (with the loot). Go through a mirror to a house on a hilltop.

House on the Hill

Explore house while Blitzkrieg heals Isil Eth. Cannot leave the house, but Alice manages to do a runner. Eventually follow her by going into the garden and then trying to return to the house. Area below us is laid out in squares. Stopped by a barrier, but find that walking backwards gets us into the area.

Red King

Find a sarcophagus with a barely living Red King laid out in it. It is a greater undead of some sort. Shin Fane votes that we stake it, to save us the trouble later. Out-voted, we leave it in peace. Move to next area. (Dillinger slips away for a short time).

Nicknack Shop

The White Queen takes us to the Nicknack shop where we make some purchases. She knits us a boat. After 40 minutes rowing we end back where we started, so we abandon the boat, and go back through the shop and out the back door. Humpty Dumpty : Find a giant sentient egg with arms and legs sitting on a wall singing to itself. After a brief conversation, it decides to jump and gets smashed to smithereens. All the kings men (on horseback) come pouring through the wall, but some of us realise that they are just illusions.

Lion and Unicorn

We find a secret door in the wall, and go through it to find a lion and a unicorn starting round 87 of a fight. The White King is overseeing the fight. The ground DA’s as “Q6”. King’s messengers appear in the form of the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. We head off.

Knight versus Knight

A Red Knight and White Knight are attempting to joust, but they keep falling off their horses. The ground now DA’s as “Q7”. Eventually the Red Knight is vanquished. The White Knight says “Glad you could make it quick follow me”. Ker-thud - he falls off his horse.

Final Confrontation

We meet the Red Queen and the White Queen and are compelled to come to dinner. Before entering the castle, however, we must don headgear. These seemingly constrain us to correspond to being a chess piece of some sort. We decide to be a variety of pieces in order to cover our options. Blitzkrieg and Dillinger are knights, Bozo and Shin Fane are bishops, and Drover and Vychan are castles. We sit down to a feast (Shin Fane and I ensure that we are sitting over different colour squares). Things go well until the main course is brought out. The platter’s lid is lifted to reveal Alice. The Red Queen lifts her knife. She raises it above Alice and looks around the table ... nothing happens ... Shin Fane and Dillinger start making comments such as “Come on”, “What are you waiting for ?”, and “Let’s get on with it”. Drover asks “Isn’t someone going to stop her ?”. The knife starts its descent and Blitzkrieg launches into action, taking on the Red Queen. All hell breaks loose. Eight pikemen appear at each end of the room and march towards each other. Our movements are now constrained to that of the chess piece we are emulating.

Red and White Knights and Castles appear and chaos ensues. Eventually we dispose of all the chess pieces, but not before Drover senselessly gets himself killed by taking on the white queen in close combat while on zero fatigue. We loot the hall, resurrect Alice and head back to where we arrived..

The End

We end up coming out of the rabbit hole 24 hours after entering (absolutely knackered, a little loony but greatly relieved to be back to relative sanity). The count cannot afford to pay what he promised, so we each negotiate payments in the form of instalments, titles and/or land grantings. Rest for a week and return to the Guild.

Retrieved from ‘https://dq-nz.org/dqwiki/index.php?title=Where%27s_Alice%3F&oldid=107280’