Tunnels & Trolls, The Last Adventure of Big Jack Brass - Page 1

A mile up in the cloudless blue sky of Trollworld hung Gristlegrim, the floating fortress. A huge cube of gray stone it was, 1000 feet long on each side, suspended weightlessly above the world by the magic of the Dwarf-God Gristlegrim. From its bottom dangled an impossibly long rope ladder, and clustered around the bottom of that were two humans and half a dozen dwarves. The dwarves were much alike--each about four feet tall, burly, bearded, and grinning ferociously. The humans were quite different. One, Big Jack Brass, was a large, beer-bellied, swaggering chap with a huge orange beard covering the lower half of his ruddy countenance. He also had bristling orange eyebrows over sea-water blue eyes, and a nose the size of a small lady's shoe. A well-worn warhammer strapped to his back gave proof that the man could fight if necessary. It was a warrior's weapon--plain, functional, deadly. In the dust at his feet groveled a thin youth in dirty gray shirt and breeches. He had a weasel's face and a beaver's front teeth, and at the moment that face was contorted in pain, as he had just fallen about ten feet from the flapping ladder. Tom the Whelp lay whining in a small cloud of dust which had lifted around him upon impact.

Brushing himself off and hauling Thomas to his feet, Jack attempted to cover his embarrassment. "Well, laddie, that should do for a warm-up. Let us leave these fine fellows to their revels and get on with the task at hand." He stomped off to the temple.

Jack entered the holyhouse and let out a bellow. A Dwarven priest clad in a toga came bustling up.

"Ah splendid, howd'ya do, laddie. My lackey and I will be wanting to get up topside, chop-chop as it were, and the poor boy's strength doesn't seem up to the climb. Tragic, really. He never recovered from that bout of swine fever as a nipper. Anyway, your master's had his bit of fun and we'd like him to offer us a hand up, so to speak. Gesture of good will, eh? I am, after all, on the ambassadorial staff of Lower Drollport and we can hardly consider opening a consulate in yer floatin' whatnot if we can't get in for a look round, yes? So, what do you say?"

Jack's story continues...