 Spotted in the Dungeon of Zork
c. 957-966 GUE  Spotted in Dungeon of Zork, Room8 948 GUE  Tentacled monsters at FCD#3 c. 883-910 GUE  An unknown frog and carnivorous plant spotted in the swamps of Fenshire, Second Age of Magic   A lake monster living behind the DM's lair 1067 GUE  A pair of humanoid creatures, spotted in Dungeon of Zork (Level 3) (c. 948 GUE) |
Several of the most peculiar, and currently unidentifiable, creatures have been spotted within the bowels of the Griffspotter Caverns. One was a low-crawling, four-legged, malformed rodent with large, bulbous eyes unaccustomed to the light. These cannibals had scarred flesh of an unnatural, blackened color. Immense sagging, fleshy earlobes ripped to shreds by the claws of countless underground dangers. Small but efficient fangs, still wet with blood.
Dozens of other creatures, smaller than the deformed rodents nested together. These solid, shelled beasts crawled around each other or over the motionless bodies of several hundred more of their comrades, small tentacle-like claws clicking, clicking.
A giant bird of prey with fondness for gnusto-receptive paper was spotted near the vicinity of Egreth Castle. It would swoop down fly off with the spell books of Enchanters with a cry of "Caw! Caw!"
Huge slimy tentacled-monsters are known to dwell in the reservoir of Flood Control Dam #3; their diet includes adventurers -- lashing around and dragging prey underwater never to be seen again. Multi-tentacled denizens were also spotted in a lake to the northwest of Egreth Castle, which powerful tentacles long enough to lash out high into the air to pull down aerial prey beneath the surface.
During 956 GUE, Krill summoned a unique monster when he was confronted by an unknown Enchanter. This being, having an evil essence, had a shape which was masked by its blackness and exuded a foul, fetid odor. It was able to wield a large battle axe in its hand.
An unknown monster was spotted in the lake behind the Dungeon Master's Lair in 1067 GUE. When it was attempted to build a magical bridge across the small body of water, the large green hand of this creature erupted from the surface and dispelled the structure with magic of its own.
Bozbik the Face Breaker fought a tentacled creature that was trying to force its way into Zork from another plane of reality during the Great Monster Uprising. Bozbik was the only adventurer who learned about it in time to forever seal it back into whatever horrific eldritch dimension beyond the understanding of feeble mortal minds from whence it came before it could have spread faster than grues from a pit. The only thing researchers known for sure is that this one was banished with a magical orb when Bozbik claimed to be a goose.
MANY STRANGE MONSTERS AT G.U.E. TECH
Many strange monsters of unknown variety were discoverd at G.U.E. Tech sometime around 1600 GUE:
One was something large and squishy squatting. A single, bright-blue eye opened in the squishy mass, and the tentacle (for that's what it was) retracted. The mass almost flowed through the spaces in the catwalk railing and dropped to the floor fifteen feet below.
When a possessed and/or zombiefied maintenance man was defeated, his body exploded into a crowd of small squealing creatures. (He may have been possessed by the Lurking Horror in the same way as the unknown hacker [see further below])
A strange creature appeared in the dream of an unknown G.U.E. Tech student. He described it as "the darkness before me, now visible, was a creature with a shape not easily grasped. It towered over the now-silent crowd. Smooth and yet scaly, it had too many limbs, and they were not in the right places. To look at it gave me a headache. It also gave off a charnel stetch. The thing jerked this way and that, spraying a foul ichor. Its palps twitched expectantly, then pounded impatiently against the rock. The thing stooped, its mandibles grasping me. I was lifted towards its gaping maw. The stench and the sounds issuing from it were overwhelming." It seems to want a stone that the student was carrying.
A dark flier was like a black sheet flapping in the wind, so it was hard to see. Red eyes glowed like coals on its scaly, bullet-shaped head. Human-like hands clenched and unclenched. Its needle-sharp teeth projected wickedly from its twisted blood-red jaw. Its wings pumped painfully in the blizzard gale. As a G.U.E. Tech student describes when I came to attack him, "The creature was quiet as a graveyard as it approached, then suddenly began to hiss and scream viciously at me as it neared. The dark shape, its foul strench overpowering in the wind (which was that of a foul eater of carrion, overlaid with another smell that I couldn't place, but which was even less appetizing) reached out with its claw to grasp and rend. I threw an object at the beast, but screeching, the creature fended off my attack. Its head jerked from side to side, watching me. The noisome creature jabbed at me with its beak, but then suddenly pulled back." It was repelled by a strange stone that the unknown student carried -- in fact, it was completely unwilling to approach it. When the student through it at the beast, it appeared to go completely through it as though the creature were made of air. The creature followed it, but did not obtain it.
An unknown G.U.E. Tech professor summoned a strange creature, which subsequently killed him. As the summoning began, the monster was but a thick black mist with a deep bass voice gibbering out of thin air. The mist thickened and began to swirl wildly about. Eventually a thing like a tentacle with a demonic face slowly wrapped about its victim, pulling it away.
Another creature, whose description is unknown (due to a leaflet being lost in the only surviving manuscript) had many "wires" that were thin, fibrous, ropy growths that connected to the heads of its prey -- which in this case were many lost humans (urchins) from the G.U.E. Tech area. These wirelike streamers wrapped their heads and joined to the creature. The "wires" were very tough enough that they had to be cut with boltcutters. The effect that the "wires" of this creature had on the prey may be described as follows from a G.U.E. Tech student's journal: "They were pale, thin creatures with red mouths and staring eyes. Their clothes were muddy and tattered. They were barefoot in midwinter, and covered with mud. Mold grew in their hair... Although their eyes were open, they stared catatonically. I realized that these were urchins. They were saying or chanting something repetitive and monotonal, almost machinelike. As I listened more carefully, the noise resolved itself into voices. They were chanting, but the words were unknown to me. The deep-voiced, incomprehensible chant, which they made without moving their lips, never stopped. It resonated deep within their chests. When I spoke to them, they turned to me in unison. They smiled, revealing red, broken teeth. As they closed in, tried to retreat further down the tunnel, but they lurched, almost as one, into my way, grabbing at me feebly but effectively. I felt their flesh. It was cold and dead. Their pale, limp hands couldn't grab me, but they were able to stop me. There was no way past." When the "wires" were cut with the boltcutters: "The wire, as though under tension, rapidly began to curl up, disappearing down the tunnel and away. The effect on the urchins was electric (perhaps literally). They twitched, jerked spasmodically, and fell to the ground almost in unison. They had lost all interest in me. As I went towards the downward passage, I found something blocking it. It was moving, slowly and painfully, trying to climb up..." (the account breaks off here)
The main entity possessing G.U.E. Tech at the time, was known only as "The Lurking Horror" (see the respective entry for a full account of the event), an indescribable being outside of humanity's understanding that was cusp of breaking through into our world. The whitish mass dwelling deep beneath the campus in subterranean chambers, "was strangely, even wrongly shaped. It was hard to get a fix on what was wrong with it, but it didn't look like it could or should have existed in any sane universe. It quivered and bubbled as though air were pumping through it. Many wires, tentacles, and combinations of the two entered the mass from all sides, making it almost fuzzy in appearance. I listened closely to the sounds, which were loud and at first seemed random. The more I listened, the more I sensed a strange regularity to them. I got impressions, one after another, of electronic music, a simple sine wave pattern, and telephone crosstalk. They were all overlaid with speech, or something like speech, nearer random babbling, or many people talking at once. I couldn't understand any of it, but it was so near intelligibility that I felt that if I moved closer, I just might get it. I subconsciously approached the mass, but was rendered from my path of insanity by the sound of the hand as it repeatedly dove and bobbed to the surface in one part of the pool near my feet..." The horror seemed to control those on the campus by inserting one of its cablelike appendages into a standard metal coax box set on the wall where the appendage joined with to a coaxial cable. The cables were interfaced to the whole campus net, meaning that it was tied into all the nets: commerical, government, even military potentially. This giving the creature nearly unlimited access.
Due to the presence of the Horror, the pool where it rested became slime-infested. The entrance to its lair was protected by a curtain of deadly, moldly phosphorescent slime. Even on appearance, one could tell that there was something about it that made it appear unhealthy, as though the influences there were so bad for anything living. Anything that touched the curtain would be immediately attacked, the dark-green slime flowing almost intelligently onto it, and then slowly undulating as it crawled over the surface of the object. The greasy, wet, and at first cold, slime was highly acidic, able to burrow even through glows. Upon living creatures, it produced a burning sensation, like that from a sea-nettle sting. Trying to scrape off the slime is a vain task, as it just flows back into place. The only thing known to kill it was an alchemical potion known as The Elixir of Life, brewed by an unknown G.U.E. Tech professor. When the liquid splashed onto the curtain, a cold mist filled the room and the slime began to freeze. Nearly the entire curtain solidified, shattered, and dropped to the ground.
The final confrontation with humanity and the Horror occurred when an unknown G.U.E. Tech student, and an unknown hacker, descended into the depths of campus to its lair. When the hacker approached, intending to cut some of the horror's appendages, "the sound stopped completely, and the wires began a frantic, looping, twining dance. The mass began to flow towards the hacker almost as quickly as he walked toward it. They reached each other and began to merge together. He screamed; a long, ululating cry that echoed through the cavern. Then he was engulfed. The mass was bulging, vibrating, and rippling. It continued for several moments until a huge tear began to form near where the hacker was absorbed.
"Suddenly, the hacker pulled himself out of the side of the mass. As he did, I thought I could see many pairs of eyes appear briefly in the semitransparent mass, watching curiously. Wires and tentacles trailed from his body, and tiny, almost rat-like creatures clung to his body everywhere, crawling about like ants. He walked slowly, jerkily towards me. "Be one!" he said, haltingly but fervently. He was vacant-eyed and dangerous. "Join us! Serve the master!" he croaked. Some of the creatures leapt onto me, biting at exposed skin."
But, in order to defeat the horror, the G.U.E. Tech student (having removed the coaxial cable from the metal box) shoved the exposed conductors into the box in its place, joining them to the appendages in place of the cable. A shower of sparks were produced. "I watched as the tentacle connected to the other socket began to jerk and twitch spasmodically. The mass it was connected to quivered, and a horrible noise, almost like a huge machine running without oil, issued from the thing. The mass began to change shape, compacting, darkening. I could briefly see human outlines within the gray, gelatinous mass. They surrounded something larger, of a shape not human, not animal, like nothing I've seen before. The hacker screamed soundlessly and dropped into the water.
"The gelatinous mass solidified and compacted, leaving behind a litter of smoking debris. In the debris squatted a being. Huge, misshapen, it stared at me with baleful yellow eyes. Its scaly wings beat slowly, driving a fetid stench through the stale air of the cavern. A barbed tongue slid across its broken, daggerlike fangs. The smooth stone vibrated. It started to feel warm. This being was not from any wholesome place. It was the stuff of nightmares! It was the thing that waits in the dark, the thing that scratches at your windows late at night. It is not death, for next to this, death is a friend to be cherished.
"I tossed the empty flask at the creature, but it defiantly shrugged off my puny attack. In reprisal, it tensed, preparing to leap. Its mouth opened, revealing not the glistening interior, but a dead-black outline like a hole into nothingness. The smooth stone I held was now glowing with a bright-red heat that nevertheless failed to burn me.
"Without hesitation, I tossed the stone at the terror. It smashed into the creature, sticking to its ichorous hide. The thing thrashed about, trying to bite at the stone, which was glowing brighter and brighter. Small hands issued from beneath its scales to tug in vain at the irritant. The creature began to show gaping holes of dark, light-devouring nothingness around the stone. Its wings spread painfully, as though it were trying to fly away, and then fold. It widened its jaw in an almost human scream of agony. The black hole of its maw overwhelmed it, and indeed the creature appeared to be swallowing itself. At last, a gray cloud of greasy smoke surrounded the glowing stone, still suspended in midair. Then even that vanished, and the stone dropped to the ground, no longer glowing. The thing was gone." (And in small consequence, the student's term paper, since the mass that was hooked into the network had it, was destroyed along with the mass).
With the creature defeated, the unknown hacker, weakly rose out the mud, staggering to his feet. Although he appeared to have been otherwise completely restored.
There was one final unknown creature related to this event. For, unknown to the G.U.E. Tech student, the smooth stone in inventory was actually the egg of this creature. Upon the defeat of The Lurking Horror, the stone "appeared to have a long jagged crack that almost broke it in half. As I picked it up, I felt it bump to one side. Then, as I was holding it in my hand, something pushed its way out through the crack, breaking the stone into two pieces. Something small, pale, and damp blinked its watery eyes at me. It hissed, gaining strength, and spread membranous wings. It took to the air, at first clumsily, then with increased assurance, and disappeared into the gloom. One eerie cry drifted back to where I stood."