Lone Wolf’s Escape From the Phantom Zone, Part 1

I didn’t post at all about my recent playthrough of Lone Wolf 10, Dungeons of Torgar. I’ve been focusing more on the reading & playing, without the distraction of also writing about it. DoT was a quick and easy adventure, due to some good luck where I found the easiest path on my first time. I get to the room where the last 3 Lorestones are all in one convenient place, magically suspended over a magical hole or portal. I climb up to get the, and Darklord Gnaag shouts “surprise!” and springs the trap. I drop into the hole, into infinite darkness.

And thus begins… Lone Wolf 11, The Prisoners of Time.

I fall for a long, long time through infinite darkness then *slam* into the ground suddenly. Right here on page 1, I take 9 damage. Ground? Yes, I’m standing on a plain of sand and rocks, a vast desert, and I know that I’ve been throw out of my own universe and into this other dimension. It’s kind of like the Phantom Zone, you know? A crappy wasteland where you stick dissidents like Lone Wolf.

So, 9 damage on page 1, and a sandstorm is rolling in. I better get into cover, and quick! I struggle my way into a gully and into a crevice, getting out of the wind. The crevice is already inhabited by a lizard, so I have to kill it so I can get some sleep. Lone Wolf is not being very heroic so far.

I wake up a few hours later to find the storm abated, and some very huge silver men trying to question me impatiently in a language I don’t understand. We work things out though, and they offer me a ride to their city, Yanis, to meet their leader The Beholder. The guy is a withered-up giant-brain thing, which we all know from science fiction means that he’s super smart and has psychic powers. He also has a really great A/V department, and does this whole “light map” thing that projects a map of the universe onto the walls. It’s totally dope, and I wonder if I could come back here with some “pipe herb” and enjoy the planetarium some time.

But anyway, he tells me that the Lorestones landed somewhere in the land of Vhozada, and fortunately he is friends with Serocca, the leader and seer over there. So, a quick teleportation gate and…

And I’m standing on a hill overlooking a river. I start hiking down the river in search of civilization, appreciating that this is far nicer than my first impression in that blasted desert. As I stop to look at a stone carving in the path, a small crowd of caveman-monkey-people appear and ask if I’m from the land of Meledor. “No, sorry, I’m from Magnamund, in Aon, another universe.” This last part goes over their heads a bit, but they figure that they should take me to see the leader. Perfect!

We are escorted into a whole city of these monkey-cavemen things, who are really pretty friendly. And without any delay, I am taken to meet Serocca. Surprisingly, she is not at all a caveman-monkey-person but a cat person. But hey, it’s the bizarre outer planes and that’s considering that I’m from a world where magic and dragons are very real, so hey whatever. She then launches into a multi-page exposition about the history of their world, why the Lorestones will be surrounded by awful creatures from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Other Gods”, and so on.

I have to take a time out for a moment. So far my only choices in the story have been to hide from a sandstorm, and to look at a monolith in my path. The other 40 pages so far have been almost entirely exposition. It’s been great for letting my Kai Curing heal me up, but at some point maybe we should put some more game into this book?

Okay, okay, I’m fine. Deep breath.

Mission briefing:

• Lorestones are in a graveyard to the north.
• Lorestones are the key to the Shadow Gate back home.
• Shadow Gate is further west, in Haagadar.
• Chaos-master is slowly de-constructing this area of the world into swirling void, and commands an army of mutated creatures of all varieties.

And with that, the exposition is done and it’s time to begin my mission.