Hulg's Ghost

by Helen the Hellion

    Jed says this dungeon is haunted.

I think he's being ridiculous.  This has got to be the world's youngest

dungeon.  The Orcish slaves built it, what, in November?  In nice, sunny

August?  The mortar is barely dry!  There are a grand total of two cobweb

spiders here, and I think one ate the other one last night.  One evil

creature is permanently asleep.  The Chihuahua counts as evil, but its

original name was probably Tulip Twinkletoes.

    Oh yeah, I'm so afraid I can barely stand to open my eyes.  Any ghost worth

the salt thrown over your left shoulder would be ashamed to be seen here.

"Jed," I keep asking him, "what could possibly have died here to haunt it?

I'm sure a few burrowing beetles were unhoused in the construction, but if

you're seeing beetle ghosts, you have some serious karma problems."

Then yesterday he really got insistent, yelling and cavorting and pointing

with both hands to the corner where Cobweb #1 has desperately been trying to

gather dust.  "It's Hulg!  It's Hulg!  He's filled with rage!  Or wait,

maybe he's laughing?"

Then he started talking to the "ghost," who immediately began bitching about

the appropriation of his body.  Seems Hulg had signed some kind of "do not

reanimate" directive back in that world, and his ghost was pissed that the

Grimp had bypassed the rules by moving Hulg's body to a new dimension.

Well, either the smell of new dungeon has gone to Jed's head, or he really

is seeing things, because that's not really the kind of thing a human knows

about Orcish homelands.  Also, Hulg is certainly the thing that's died the

most around here.  Certainly beats that spider carcass.

    Shortly after ghost-Hulg started getting demanding, Twinkletoes came by

and started growling at the corner, and Jed said the ghost was gone.  When

Filthgrinder came by later to throw some slops at us (a charming gesture at

hardship), Jed asked a few questions.

    Seems most reanimation spells bring the ghost back to the body, and Hulg had

been kind of pissed about that, but hadn't usually stayed alive long enough

to get a really good complaint going on.  But the last necromancer, the one

that succeeded, did something else, so that we now have two Hulgs:  the

pissed-off ectoplasmic one, and the very meaty corporeal one.  Sucks for Jed

that he's the intermediary, but I think it's funny.  Must be rough for

Hulg:  one-time badass, now reduced to a begging ghost hiding in a single

cobweb, trying to convince a toasted human to get him properly killed.

Almost makes this dungeon worthy of the name.