Story Locale (Lands of Ludolog): The Dig

The DigEach miniworld in Ludolog is connected to one another by the Nexus, but deep down beneath the surface of each is “The Dig”, a strange phenomenon known to link the demiplanes together through hidden lateral channels. Entrances to these hidden channels appear at random near the end of some miniworlds, and others might be hidden throughout a given level. Little is known of the oddity, but it’s thought that The Dig was originally created by the rulers of Ludolog as a means to escape from their realms. As time passed and these sovereigns remained unchallenged, however, The Dig fell into disrepair. Passaged collapsed, burying stashed treasure and other wonders of the 2-Bit Dimension.

After the fall of the boss Equatorial Frost, several of the rulers decided that re-opening The Dig was necessary, hastening to refit the old tunnels. Contracting the services of Ludolog’s resident plumber, Marcus, they developed a small, hand-held device to swiftly burrow through the ground. Armed with this contraption, the sovereigns sent out their minions to create a new network of escape tunnels beneath the miniworlds.

The minions did not return.

In its centuries of abandonment and neglect, The Dig attracted new denizens—blokars and fyookies [check them out on Sidequest Saturday! –RT]. These creatures inhabit small tunnels in The Dig, constantly treading back and forth until a living being chances upon their domain. When an intruder is detected, they become incorporeal (able to pass through the earth) and pursue the life force relentlessly, heading towards the tunnel that contains it to materialize and attack. Blokars deliver an instadeath touch attack while Fyookies deploy an instadeath breath attack of cold flame. Both of these creatures proved invincible and faced with deadly foes that could not be killed, The Dig was abandoned once more. In response to these dangers beneath them, the bosses of several miniworlds fortified the areas around their entrances to The Dig, and in many cases relocated their lairs to the same location to pool their resources.

Marcus wasn’t content to sit still, however, and he began to study The Dig and its denizens on his own. To traverse the tunnels and earth quickly he created a small, portable digging device that allows for the rapid quarrying of passages in Ludolog’s underworld. Skulking about The Dig in tunnels of his own creation, Marcus began to unearth ancient artifacts and even more important discovery: hidden within the earth itself were weapons that could destroy the blokars and fyookies. glitched boulderOne of these weapons was little more than a magic air pump, full of replenishing gas from from one of the three-dimensional planes. Air from this pump stuns a blokar or fyookie, and with successive use, could inflate and eventually kill the impervious creatures.

He was also the first to discover glitched boulders, capable of killing the beasts but also freezing parts of The Dig, or cause random treasures to appear in the middle of the current level for a small amount of time. The persistent plumber began to recover and catalog these treasures and as his collection grew, Marcus noted a pattern—all of the treasures were items stolen or scavenged from the other miniworlds. With stories of these discoveries rampant across Ludolog, one has reason to think that perhaps the PC’s ship is hidden away in The Dig, waiting to be found…

 

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