Synopsis of The Seven Geases
Ralibar Vooz, lord and magistrate of Commoriom, is hunting. They camp at Mount Voormithadreth, and hear locals killing a saber tooth tiger and alpine catoblepas. Vooz is here to hunt the locals, called Voormis after the mountain. They head up the Mount but find no sport. The Voormis cannot be found.
They eventually arrive near some caves. They climb up above them to get down to them, but the opening down is not appearing, and his men and himself keep spiraling up the mountain. He is leading them up the mountain and spies smoke before hearing voices in front. He yells to his men to join him and bellows an announcement of his arrival to the people he hears and heads around the rocks. He spies a cabin in the mountain and approaches.
He finds an old man by an oddly colored fire in front of the hut. The old man and his archaeopteryx familiar curse Vooz and his arrival for ruining his evocation. Vooz doesn’t understand all that the sage is telling him, but he’s pissed that the guy is talking to one such as him rudely. Of course, he threatens the old man with violence, and the man announces that he is Ezdagor, a mighty wizard. In response to Ralibar Vooz’s interruption of his magic, and subsequent threatening, Ezdagor places him under a geas.
Vooz must cast aside all weapons and armor and head into the den of the Voormis. He is to fight against the whole tribe and then deeper into the cave until he finds Tsathoggua. Once there, he is to announce that he is the sacrifice to Tsathoggua from Ezdagor. The familiar archaeopteryx will go with him to guide him to the right place. Ultimately, Vooz is allowed to keep his basic armor to help him reach Tsathoggua.
Due to the leadings of the familiar, he is able to find the cave of the Voormis and enters. He slays the shaggy Voormis, and their females and children. Then he breaks through their camp and moves in deeper. He arrives at a foul-smelling cave wherein Tsathoggua lies. He announces that he is to be the sacrifice. The creature announces that he just feasted on a sacrifice and is sated for the moment, so he is given a second geas – to find Atlach-Nacha, and to announce that he is the sacrifice sent by Tsathoggua.
Down caves and caverns the familiar and Ralibar Vooz head. Finally he arrives at a giant chasm with many webs woven across it from one side to the other. In the middle of the webs, hovering over the abyss, is a dark creature. Seeing it, Ralibar announces has sacrificial status. It moves across the webs with lightning speed. It is a gigantic mix of human and spider. Atlach-Nacha says that he has not the time to extract Vooz from his metal shards, because he has to always guard the abyss. He sends Ralibar on to the Ante-Human sorcerer Haon-Dor with a third geas.
Vooz moves over the webs to the other side and across a ledge. They find stairs, and at the stairs is a giant snake. Seeing the familiar, it moved aside and allowed access to the stairs. They entered the palace of Haon-Dor. They penetrate various rooms and corridors, due to the knowledge the archaeopteryx has. They find the throne room on which sits a patch of darkness, in the shape of a being. He announces that he was sent by Atlach-Nacha. Silence ruled for some time, but ultimately sound radiated from the figure. He considered feeding him to his familiars, but they are too many and Vooz to little food. Instead, he will send him to his allies, and gives him another geas. He is to find the serpent people and present himself to them.
Deep into this underworld went Vooz led by the archaeopteryx. He finally found the serpent-men. He announces his appearance, but it takes a while and more announcing before the serpent-men acknowledge he is even there. They inspect Vooz and then go and find two specimens of people – one a Voormis and another a man. They give a lecture on anatomy to other lizard men in some other language. Eventually one speaks to him and thanks Huon-Dor for sending him to them, but they already have a sample of his species and they have dissected many others and have all of the knowledge they need. They don’t even eat meat anymore and his body has no pharmaceutical value. They give him another geas, to find and submit himself to the Archetypes.
They continue down, and discover a T Rex among spongy ground. It chases him and eats him, but with a body that’s astral, he manages to fall out and is fine. It moves way to find something digestible. They pass many other dinosaurs. He eventually arrives at two vaguely humanoid people. They claim to be the originals of mankind and are upset at how coarse a copy mankind now is of them. They disown Ralibar Vooz. He is given yet another geas, to depart without delay and to find Abhoth.
He is tiring but cannot stop. He finds a cavern with disgusting creatures all over. Giant worms with many tails and oddly shaped lizards. A thick steam hung about the cavern he has entered and stained his armor. Here he finds a pool and the familiar stops. From it spawned the creatures that filled the cavern. Many mouths appeared across it to eat those that spawned but moved not fast enough. He proclaimed to Abhoth his arrival as per the geas. A part of the pool rose, like a tentacle and created a rough hand, who moved and explored Vooz’s body.
Abhoth communicates with Vooz telepathically and is upset that the Archetpyes bothered him. It doesn’t appear that Vooz is anything Abhoth can devour, since he is not one of his progeny or progeny’s progeny. Therefore, he banishes Raliber Vooz to the Outer Realm and gives him a geas to leave here at once and go outside.
The familiar allows Vooz to rest for a bit before continuing. The archaeopteryx found a fish’ish thing and Vooz eats it raw due to his hunger, weariness, and lack of anything else available. They begin to leave the underworld. The route they are taking is a short cut. They skip past The Archetypes, serpent people and temple of Huon-Dor, using a different exit. Eventually, the arrive at the Abyss guarded by Atlach-Nacha. All along the way he was chased by the progeny of Abhoth that grew as they left his side. One creature moves onto the webbing and he is chased by the progeny to the webs. He moves in after the wake of the first creature and tries to escape the progeny. However, the webbing has weakened, and it falls. He plunges into the Abyss.
The final line is:
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This, unfortunately, was a contingency that had not been provided against by the terms of the seventh geas.
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Full quote:
In OD&D, there’s no guarantee that things are fair. One of Gary’s and Rob Kuntz’s favorite stories, says Mornard, was Clark Ashton Smith’s The Seven Geases, in which the hero survives a horrible death at the hands of seven different monsters only to die meaninglessly slipping from a ledge. That was one of the seminal texts of D&D, said Mornard, and one of the stories it was designed to model. “The story that D&D tells,” said Mike, “is the story of the world. Heroes aren’t invincible”