Saturday 5 December 2020

Perilous Island - Chapter 6: The Forbidden City

The insurmountable walls of the ancient Enochean city loom high over the mutated jungle plants. Amazingly advanced for an ancient civilization, the obvious influence of technology beyond their time, adding more to the mystery.  

Our adventurers have the inescapable and unsettling feeling of being watched.  An inhuman cry ripped through the  silence, shattering hardened nerves like glass. What manner of creature could make such a savage sound?  

Having put together the clues and pages of Darrow's journal they had discovered our heroes see that he described a weird ritual for unlocking the cyclopean gates. If in fact he made it this far, Lord Darrow must now be inside the city... 






Having completed the ritual a pale greenish-blue light is emitted from what our explorers had thought was simply a statue.  With a terrible creaking and grinding this apparent Guardian begins to move and our heroes must defeat it or evade it in order to get beyond the gate.



Slipping past the Guardian Dick O’Donnell is first through the gate with his companions swiftly followed by Biggles and his friends leaving General Zorn at the hands of the Guardian and their shouts and screams fade behind our heroes as the great gate slams shut. The once majestic city lies in ruins. At the end of the grand thoroughfare an unholy temple pulses with an evil glow.  Reading the journal reveals that this must be the Temple of Ba’al Enoch! 

Suddenly Lord Darrow stumbles from the entrance of the Temple. In his arms, he clutches a glowing orb.  It must be the substance used and worshipped by the ancient Enocheans, the stone glows and pulses with unimaginable power. 

Strange ghostly vapors lash out from the stone and are absorbed into Lord Darrow's being, each wracking his body with crackling energy.  Once a man of proud stature and reputation, the twisted form that staggers towards you is a mocking parody of Darrow's human existence. The air swirls about him crackling and gaining substance, whilst it remains visible, his face contorts with rage, fear, and pain as he screams. 

“You should not have come. It is too late for me.   Go now! You all shall be destroyed...” With each word Darrow's body gradually dissolves into the swirling form. In mere seconds, the horrific transformation is complete. “I am the Thrice-Damned Wanderer!”, he bellows in a strangely ethereal but deafening voice. 

Everywhere around our heroes the very elements of nature are being torn asunder, as they bend to the Wanderer's will. Now is the time to act and there is not a second to spare... 






With most of our heroes being showered in a veritable deluge of flying masonry or being struck by bolt of strange lightning from the heart of the Wanderer only a couple managed to struggle to the top of the Temple to confront the horror.

In the end Biggles manages to wrench the orb from the heart of the maelstrom, the reverse-transformation is almost instantaneous. Lord Darrow collapses into a heap, crippled by the ordeal. The sight of his daughter, Elaine, brings a human quality back to his eyes as he breathes his final breath. 

With Lord Darrow's passing, the orb ceases to glow and within seconds crumbles to dust. As if the crumbling orb were a death rattle, the island shakes violently, and ashen smoke billowed from the volcano! Our heroes flee for the shore and finally sail for safety as the island disappears beneath a rain of flaming rock into a boiling sea.

And so ends the Perilous Island - will our heroes have a taste for more adventure? Only time will tell...

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