Void Where Prohibited

I cannot say that voids mean great things for adventuring parties. Usually they signify a step into the negative plane of existence or getting stuffed into a bag of holding or some tricky lich's lair. Nope, voids are almost always a step in the exact wrong direction. Even having a void in your memory after a hard night of ale swigging and Bag End heavy top is problematic; I have had to visit a cleric on more than one occasion to have a cure disease cast on me because of some encounter with someone.

But, good adventurer that I am, I do have one story where a void paid off. Four of us decided that it was time to shake off the dust of the three horse town we were staying in and do a little exploring. As it usually does, one thing led to another, and next thing I know, we are in a good, old-fashioned bandit brawl, followed by an equally old-fashion gnoll slaughter. One of the gnolls had a key, that key opened a door, as most keys do, and before you can say "Woolly Bay," we are headed down a flight a stairs. No big deal until it starts to stink. I mean really stink; we are talking kobold orgy level of stench here. But we are hardened adventures, and we gird our loins and keep walking through the almost visible waves of odor.

There is a door at the bottom of the stairway, as is common with stairs, and, as is common for adventuring parties, we break the door down. As the door falls, we finally see what is causing all the stench. It is a roughly twenty-foot tall pile of garbage, gnoll poop, severed body parts, rot grubs, flies, and pretty much anything else that would live in a mound of waste that is two ten-foot poles high. By this point, I am working hard at keeping down lunch, as I assume everyone else is. But then I notice our cleric mumbling out a prayer while holding an iron bar and touching a small part of the pile. Eight segments later, the garbage pile vanishes, smell and all. Without saying anything, all of us turn around, leave the garbage room, climb the stairs, pass the gnoll and bandit bodies, and spend the next couple turns inhaling clean air. Turns out the cleric had a long-standing phobia of garbage and plane shifted it all to the negative plane of energy. I mean, that is a serious phobia to use a 5th-level spell on a mound of trash, but I am glad he did.

And so ends the story of the only time a void worked for me.

Warrior on the End of Time is Hawkwind's fifth album, with some lyrics by Michael Moorcock.