"All Role Playing
Gamers dream of stepping into the shoes of their characters. But when Simon Brewer finds himself really
living the life of his favorite character, the saucy thief Foxglove, he
discovers that Dungeons are no fun in real life, and Dragons are hazardous to
your health!"
FOXGLOVE
or,
Reflections in a Gorgon's Eye
A Transgendered Fantasy
This story is dedicated every Gamer who had a really
great game ruined by the unwanted intrusion of crass reality.
Edited by Steve Zink
CHAPTER
NINE
I Got Dibs On The Dead Guy's Stuff
Avon
approached Foxglove, who was seated propped against one of the Menhirs
surrounding the well, intently reading a scroll.
"The
latest from the 'Scroll of the Month Club'?" he quipped.
"Avon,
listen to this - 'whosoever holds the Drakylon's Pearl, is proof against the
Wyrd-Drake's ire, and the rage of the beast is theirs to command'."
"Yeah,
that's what Zohar said, just before the damn thing gutted him."
"Yes,
but it says 'the rage of the beast is theirs to command'. Not the beast itself, but the rage. When he held it, he was immune to harm from
the Drakylon's firey breath, but not its more mundane claws and other natural
weaponry - if anything about that thing could be called natural. So why did he think that just holding the
pearl would make him the Drakylon's master?"
"So
he misread the passage - it wouldn't be the first time that someone thought he
had an Ace up his sleeve that turned up a Joker."
"Not
Zohar - he was a Rules Lawyer's idea of a Rules Lawyer. When we were flying on his carpet, he had me
reading scrolls for him while he piloted the rug. He'd read and re-read a passage, and then go back and read it
again if he came across anything new that might impact on that passage. It wasn't like him to just assume
that just holding the pearl would give him that kind of power."
"Well
it is a pretty ambiguous passage-"
"That's
just it! It is such an
ambiguous passage! Why
would an anal retentive like Zohar put his ass on the line for something so
iffy?"
"So,
what are you trying to say?"
"I
don't know - I just have this really annoying feeling that something is very
wrong, and it won't go away.
I feel like a Nazi war criminal flying on Air Israel."
Their
discussion was interupted when Hargrim and Kitsune came climbing out of the
Drakylon's well. The Dwarf was hauling
two large sacks, stuffed with gold and jewels.
He carried them over to his stolidly waiting warfrog, tied them to the
amphibian's saddle, and went back to the hole in eager anticipation of more.
"Yo! Spudemon!" Foxglove called out. "Y'know, you don't have to empty
out all the treasure down there.
We will be heading back in this direction on our way back from
the Dark Tower. All we have to do is
leave that stuff down there."
Hargrim
gave her an 'Are You Kidding?' look.
"Oh, we're supposed to trust that everyone around here is
going to respect the fact that We offed the critter, so it's our
treasure, and just leave it down there for us?"
"Hey,
if we shove the Drakylon's husk back down the hole, the threat of a monster
that no-one knows is dead will keep anyone from trying to rip it off. And aren't you kind of overloading that poor
frog of yours?"
"Oh,
it's n- Ah, don't worry about Wartmonger, he's a tough old
bug-muncher. Shouldn't you be down
there, checking the loot for magic items and such?"
"Already
did - a few gewgaws - a pin that detects Gold, a quill that writes as you
dictate to it, a couple of third-eschelon magic swords - the real treasure was
the pearl, and nothing else is really worth mentioning."
"Says
you! I want that pin!"
Behind
Hargrim, Kitsune assumed her straight-backed, poker faced posture with two
fingers held up. "The weight of my
burdens threatens to break my back - let me stop to pick up a few more
millstones."
Foxglove
grimaced, "Kit, yer slippin' - I actually understood that
one." She turned to Hargrim. "Talk to Theocles, but not right
now. He and Mornsong are having yet
another of their 'My God's Bigger than Your God' contests. Right now they're both Auguring their little
hearts out, trying to get a Divine Inspiration on how to get Dr. Zohar back
among the living."
"Why
bother?"
"Now,
now, Hargrim, I know he can be a little hard to take at times, but
remember this run was designed for all our characters, so we'll probably
need him for something that only he can deal with. And you just know that his Player is
going to be really pissy if we don't get him back in the game
quick."
Hargrim
shook the ash off of his never-diminishing, ever-lit cigar. "Hrrrmmmpphff! Yet another Side Quest! A Side Quest to a Side Quest!"
Avon
tried to put a positive spin on it.
"Well, maybe whatever thing we need to do to get Zohar back will be
as lucrative as this side trip was."
He jerked a thumb at the Drakylon's well. The Dwarf visibly brightened at the thought.
Kitsune
held up a bag. "I brought up a bag
of gold pieces and some nice sized gems.
They ought to pay our expenses for the next few steps of our trip. But I, being a *ahem* 'chaste
monk, avowed to poverty and humility' (Kami-sama, what I have to put up
with!), can only travel with the barest of neccessities - food, clothes,
instruments of defense, portable hot-tub with automatic masseur-"
"You
have a portable hot-tub with automatic masseur?'
"No,
but we might find one, and I don't want to limit myself - anyway, I can only
travel with the bare essentials, which doesn't cover travelling money. So, who carries the food money?"
Foxglove
chewed on that one for a bit.
"Well, our de jure Leader, Theocles is busy trying to get
his boss on the line. After Theocles,
I'd say that most of us recognize Justin's moral authority most. Besides, he has the biggest sword. So, let him carry it."
Kitsune
leaned over with a puckish expression on her face. "Ooohh, gonna give to your Boooyyy-friieennd?"
she said tauntingly, and made kissy-faces.
Foxglove
looked up witheringly at her.
"What's that? Third grade
Zen? C'mon-" she got up "-I
gotta talk something over with ol' Straight Arrow, anyway."
Justin,
Karl and J'Mira were trying to coax Justin's warhorse into hauling the
Drakylon's husk over to the well, so that the remains could be chucked down the
well. Kitsune gave Justin the
money-pouch, and Foxglove unrolled the scroll again. "I was going through Zohar's books and scrolls, trying to
figure out why he thought the pearl would give him control of the
Drakylon-"
"I
don't know why you're still harping on that."
"Hey! Don't dis the trade!" Avon snapped.
"Anyway,
I came across a few notes that he had written, and a scrap of a mostly unmarked
map. One of his specific Personal
Quests - I assume that we all got notes giving us Personal Quests - was to
recover a Grimoire That Is Not To Be Named."
"There
is an actual book called the Grimoire That Is Not To Be Named?"
"Of
Course, there's a Grimoire That Is Not To Be Named! Every fantasy world has a Grimoire
That Is Not To Be Named. Like every
hard-boiled detective story has to have a Hooker with a Heart of Gold, or a
Double-Crossing Femme Fatale! It's a
Hack Writer's Union Rule."
Justin
didn't like the sound of it. "And why
do we need to find this Grimoire That Is Not To Be Named? If anything, it sounds like asking
for trouble!"
"Of
Course, it's asking for trouble!
This is a Role-Playing Game, for the luvva Bog! Getting into trouble is the entire point! Who ever heard of a RPG where everything
went smoothly? But - more to the point,
if our two servants of competing gods can't come up with a method of
resurrecting Zohar, what better place to look than in the Grimoire That Is Not
To Be Named? It should be right between
'The Care and Feeding Of the Dread Demon D'fohwrisu'van-N'g', and 'How To Get
Troublesome Shoggyth Stains Out Of Your Sacrificial Robes'. According to Zohar's notes, the Grimoire
That Is Not To Be Named is kept in a black tower - not to be confused with the
Dark Tower of the Thaumaturge - (have you ever noticed that Evil always takes
up residence in dark towers? Howcum
Evil never takes a lease on the Nice, Wide, Airy Bungalow of Doom, or the Cozy
Little Cottage of Terror?) - anyway, a black tower set in the north corner of a
ruined keep-" Foxglove paused and looked around her.
As
one, they chorused, "Dungeon Crawl!"
"Besides,
Two will get you Seven, that there's something in the Grimoire That Is Not To
Be Named that directly impacts on our main quest. Fortunately, while Zohar didn't have a clue as to it's
exact whereabouts, I was provided a map without a context. Guess whose maps perfectly interface
with each others'?"
Further
discussion was cut short when Avalyn burst forth from her pavillion in a wreath
of laurel smoke, a song of triumph on her lips and a slightly glazed look in
her eyes. "The Great Mother has
smiled on us! I have had a Vision! I saw a Unicorn, a magnificent Unicorn,
running in a glorious glade! If I can
beg the purchase of its horn, my Chalice of Purity, in conjunction with the
horn and certain herbs, will create an oil, which poured into a healing spring,
will give that spring the ability to restore life to the newly dead. We must prepare Zohar's body, so that it
will still be fresh enough that the spring will bring him back to us."
The
adventurers looked around at each other.
It seemed a bit far-fetched, but in keeping with most of the 'mysticism'
that Mornsong practiced. Besides, the
Worldkeeper needed an excuse to bring Zohar back into the game, and this was
probably as good a way as any.
Avon
cleared his throat, "Ah, Avalyn, you wouldn't happen to know exactly where
we could find a Unicorn, would you?"
"Of
course! It was in the vision! The Glade of the Unicorn-"
Kitsune
whispered to Foxglove, "Ooohh, Zelazny's gonna be pissed
if he hears about this!"
"-lies
roughly fifty miles in that direction." She pointed West by Northwest.
Foxglove
checked the map. "It's not
actually that far out of our way.
Indeed, if we check out the Grimoire That Is Not To Be Named, the Glade
of the Unicorn is just a little further on.
Okay, it's a little Deus Ex Machina, but what can you expect
from a Computer game?" She smiled
indulgently at the still-spacey Avalyn.
"Oh, Lady Mornsong, since you seem to be on a roll - you wouldn't
happen to know the location of a healing spring, would you?"
Mornsong
focused her eyes, furrowed her brow, and then trudged back into her
pavillion. Laurel smoke and chanting
resumed flowing forth from the tent.
J'Mira
smirked. "I guess she's still working
on that part."
*****
When
Mornsong got the location of the spring, they began to prepare his body for the
Ressurection Immersal. Foxglove took
this opportunity to introduce J'Mira to another fine old Gamer's tradition:
Robbing the Dead.
"Y'see,
J'Mira, when another Player Character dies, it simply doesn't make any sense to
just bury his magical items with him.
So, we upgrade our defenses, and improve our own effectiveness by using
the tools of those who can't use them anymore.
In the case of ol' Zohar here, we can reasonably expect him back pretty
soon, so we'll have to keep a list of who is using what." She cast an IDENTIFY ITEM spell on his
effects. "Hmmm, lotsa defense
items - the Cloak is +2 to Armor Class, the Bracers of Defense are +2 AC, a
Ring of Protection +3 AC - not bad for someone who fought from the hind
rank! - his Amulet is +3 to protect against Spells, and he has a Ring of Spell
Storing. Okay, my first bid is for the
Amulet. Hermod, are you getting all
this down?"
The
Acolyte nodded and continued scribbling.
J'Mira
looked at Foxglove. "I'd think
that someone who fights as close up as you, and is so lightly armored, would
jump on one of the armoring charms."
"The
only one that would really help would be the Bracers of Defense, and to be
honest, while we're down a Sorcerer, I think that I'll be a higher priority
target for magic than I was before. I'd
feel a lot safer with the Amulet.
Mornsong will probably opt for it too, for the same reasons. We'll flip a coin for it - if she wins, I'll
take the Bracers."
"Why
not go for another Ring of Protection?
It's AC is better."
"Because
I already have two rings, and most games honor the time-hallowed play-balance
schtick of 'only two rings per customer'.
It keeps the Player Characters from looking too much like Sammy Davis,
Jr."
"Y'know,
this is a little creepy, taking stuff off of a guy we know." J'Mira illustrated with a dramatic shiver.
"Yeah,
well, most Dungeon runs are actually little more than tomb robbing- Hey,
waitaminnit- the Drakylon's Pearl is here, but where is Zohar's
Dragon-Staff?" Foxglove looked
around the sorcerer's effects. "Let's
see, it was right by his body when he fell - does anybody remember what
happened to it after that?"
Justin's
squire, Karl said, "I remember placing it right next to his body when we
fixed up the stretcher for him. But
after that, anybody could have taken it."
"She
took it!" Hargrim shouted, pointing at Foxglove with a look of vengeful
satisfaction. "Only a Magic User
has any reason to take the damn thing, and she's a thief! She'd consider it her right to
take it, no matter how much that screwed over the rest of us! Besides, the only other Magic User in the
group was Mornsong, who's been too busy to try and snitch it. I'll search through her stuff-"
"Go
anywhere near my things, Toadstool, and I'll dice you up and throw you
into a stew!" Foxglove hissed icily, her hand on the pommel of her
rapier.
"Oh,
like that toothpick scares me," sneered the Dwarf, drawing
his own warhammer. "I'll squash
you like a bug while you're still poofing around trying to get your fencing
stance right!"
"You
can only hit what you can see, Maggot! CLOUD OF CONCEALMENT!"
The silvery gray fog filled the tent in the space of a breath.
At
this point, Theocles appeared at the flap of the tent, called by Hermod, his
acolyte. "What kind of nonsense is
this? DISPEL MAGIC!" The cleric brandished his Holy Symbol,
dismissing the mists.
Hargrim
gave a victorious "HA!" and started the backswing on his hammer.
Theocles
boomed, "JUSTIN! Restrain
Him!"
The
Paladin threw the Dwarf to the ground before he could build up any momentum
with the hammer. Foxglove was clearing
the steel of her rapier, when Kitsune got her in a Full Nelson.
Once
order was restored, Hargrim repeated his accusation. Theocles gave Foxglove a piercing look. "Vargrimson has a point, thief. In order to clear your name, you're going to
have to allow a detailed search of your belongings."
J'Mira
stepped forward. "HOLD IT! If we allow this little pest the
right to rummage through our belongings whenever he wishes, what other
Rights and Powers will he-" she sneered at Hargrim, and then cocked a
haughty brow at Theocles, "-and YOU allow yourselves? My sister-" she placed a hand on
Foxglove's shoulder, "-stands accused, not convicted-"
Hargrim
jumped in. "HA! See!
They're in it together!
Justin, didn't I tell you that she had those two in her
pocket?"
J'Mira
swung her staff in a fierce crescent, stopping it a gnat-wing's breadth from
his nose. "We will allow a
search of our belongings, but only on the understanding that this
is an exception - you do NOT have the right to search, let alone seize,
any of our property, without our consent!
IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?" She
finished with a pantherish glare at both cleric and berserker.
Hargrim
tried to resume some of his dignity.
"Well then, I'll start-"
"NOT
YOU," Foxglove interrupted. "Him." She pointed at Justin. "I trust him to search through
my things - not you, Root-rot."
"Well?" J'Mira pulled herself to her maximum height,
towering over Hargrim. "Will that
suffice? Or are you going to claim that
My Sister has corrupted the Sword and Shield of the Holy Church as well,
Goatdropping?"
"No,
I don't think that she's corrupted him - though not for the want of trying!"
sneered the Dwarf through his cigar.
"AND,
we demand that a search of everyone's belongings be made, after Sister
Foxglove's." She glared again at
Hargrim. "Everyone's."
Theocles
started to argue, but Justine put his hand on his shoulder and shook his
head. Theocles glowered at him with a
betrayed look, but relented. The
paladin, cleric and dwarf went over to Foxglove and Kitsune's tent to start
their search, as Scintilla blew them a collective razzberry.
Foxglove
shrugged out of Kitsune's grip.
"Thanks, J'Mira - I was ready to make nerd-kabob out of the little
asshole!"
"Y'welcome-"
she leaned in, "-aahh, you didn't take it,
didja?"
"What
am I, Mental? After Hargrim's
hammer, that staff is the biggest gun we've got! I want that thing up and running every time
we run into something! But how
am I s'pozed to use it if I gotta keep it hidden all the time? The first time that I'd use it, I'd blow my
own cover! Besides, where would
I hide it? It's over six feet
long, for the luvvakrist! Oh, and
two more points - One: If I'd wanted that staff so badly, I coulda just rigged
whatever selection process for whoever got it; I mean, only a Magicker can use
the damn thing, and Mornsong's the only other one we have!" That last point roused that annoying
something/nothing, and Foxglove chewed on the point for a moment. "Ah, where was I? Oh, yeah!
Second: That staff is just not my style! If I'd wanted to be a lightning-bolt and
fireball type of sorcerer, I woulda started out that way!"
"Sorry." J'Mira tried to make up for her lapse of
faith with a one-armed hug.
"De
Nada." Foxglove added in a sotto
voce aside to Kitsune, "Now I know why you keep the Ninja thing under
wraps."
J'Mira
snapped her fingers. "Hold
It! Why don't you use your handmirror
to find it?"
"Well,
so far the mirror has only been good for looking into areas that I know the
location of, and finding people that I know pretty well - I dunno how good it's
gonna be at finding an inanimate object."
J'Mira
waggled a finger in Foxglove's face, "Ah, but Zohar's Dragon-Staff is an Item
of Power! Or, so everyone keeps
saying. I think that a Power Item would
be able to find another Power Item, don't you?"
Foxglove
nodded; another one for the Rookie! She
pulled out her mirror. She looked into
the mirror for a bit and then looked at the mirror itself in
irritation. "Kit, would you hand
me the Drakylon's Pearl?" With the
glowing purple sphere in the other hand, Foxglove tried again. Then she looked at her friends in confusion. "This is weird. I get the impression that the Pearl wants
to connect with the Dragon-Staff, but there's something blocking
it. And as for the Mirror, it's
basically saying that the Dragon-Staff doesn't exist!"
"You
don't think that Mornsong is screwing with it, do you?"
"That's
Hargrim-type thinking, J'Mira."
"No
need to get nasty - she's just the only other magicker around, that's
all."
Kitsune
broke in, "Actually, there's another magical personage far more closely
associated with Dr. Zohar, who is suspiciously missing."
"WHO?"
J'Mira and Foxglove hooted in unison.
"Well,
has anyone seen Zohar's stupid Cat anywhere recently?"
The
three of them broke up to search the camp for the cat.
A
few minutes later both Kitsune and Foxglove were screaming in outrage, when
they saw the mess that the 'search party' left in their tent. Picking up one of her spare silk shirts from
off the ground, Foxglove muttered, "Now I know how a Dragon must feel
after we've come through his lair."
Kitsune
adapted her 'Zen Wisdom' pose, and intoned, "The Dog chases it's own tail
- it must be guilty, why else would it flee?" Foxglove hit her squarely in the face with a
pillow.
CHAPTER
TEN
And What's Behind Door Number Three, Carol Merril?
Mornsong
decreed that once it had been prepared, that Dr. Zohar's body should never
touch the ground. She based this on the
theory that one of the constants of European mythlore was that the Realm of the
Dead was somewhere underground, and touching it put his soul one step closer to
the Gates of Eternity. And, since no
one had asked Zohar what particular theology he subscribed to (though his
Quabalistic name hinted at one of the Judeo-Christian sects), if his soul went
through those gates, they wouldn't know which Heaven or Hell to go looking for
him in. This was resolved by rolling
him up in his flying carpet and letting that move him. This meant that neither Foxglove nor
Mornsong could use it as a vehicle, but since neither knew exactly how to fly
the stupid thing, this wasn't as big a hindrance as one may think.
The
fortress that the 'dark tower' was part of was situated on high on a ridge near
a pass further into the Barbegassi mountains.
The crest was a couple of yards higher than the local timber-line, so
the tower rose well above the treetops.
As the group's forward scouts, J'Mira, Kitsune and Foxglove were the
first to actually lay eyes on it.
Standing on a branch high on one of the larger trees, they checked it
out.
"Roger
Corman surplus," grumped Foxglove.
"With all other high quality graphics around here, they could have
at least done better than scanning in an old 'B' movie set."
"Oh
well," Kitsune sighed, "at least it isn't raining."
As
if on cue, the clouds darkened, and a bolt of lightning silhouetted the tower
dramatically. J'Mira and Foxglove
looked daggers at Kitsune, who just grinned and said, "Frau Blucher!"
The
lightning flashed again and thunder rumbled over the foothills.
Kitsune
grinned widely, jerked a thumb at the tower and said, "Well, at least we
know that one of the programmers is a Mel Brooks fan!"
"And
that's supposed to be a plus?"
"Hey,
it could be worse - they could be Monty Python-heads, and we could find
ourselves fighting Vorpal Bunnies or the Knights Who Say Nee!"
J'Mira
made a moue, "Worse than 40-year-old Sid Ceasar jokes? Iffy, at best!"
*****
Kitsune
straightend her legs out in a split, forcing her feet against either side of
the death-pit, her rump only inches away from the jagged spikes rising up from
the bottom of the pit. "Hey, Guys,
a little help would be vastly appreciated!"
Hargrim
lowered a rope in front of the 'monk', who had a very nasty moment avoiding
swinging her legs onto the spikes. As
she climbed out, she muttered, "Death-pits, falling blocks of masonry,
crushing walls, bladed pendulums, arrow-traps; with building and maintaining
all this crap, when the hell do these guys find the time to eat?"
As
she finished noting the placement of the trap on the map, Foxglove said,
"More to the point, what do they find to eat? - aside from the odd
party of adventurers or each other.
Aside from a couple of pits of corrosive green slime, and ochre jelly,
the only other things moving in the five-story fixer-upper have been Conjured
Monsters, and Golems of one sort or another.
And the Flesh Golems look like they were stitched together from bits and
pieces of these guys." Foxglove
kicked the remains of one of the ruin's dominant life-form: a man-sized
quasi-humanoid reptiloid, with a snake-like lower half and a human-like upper
half.
J'Mira
knelt beside the corpse and examined it closely. "There's something very wrong about these creatures."
The
rest of the party favored her with a 'Well DUH!' look.
"These
mountains are too high and too cool for reptiles of this size. Only Dragons, which lair underground and
sleep for long periods of time, make their homes up this high. If they go outside to hunt for game, then
they are effectively stuck inside by the cold from mid-Autumn to
mid-Spring. That's almost half the
year. Even then, they can probably only
stand to be inside because these ruins are un-naturally warm."
Without
looking back from his tapping at the walls, Hargrim said, "Underground hot
springs. While these hills aren't
volcanic, they are of the mineral type that often have subterranean
rivers that are heated by layers of rock giving off heat because they're under
tremendous geological pressure. I'll
bet the original structure was built here to take advantage of both the
artesian well and the hot springs."
When the conversation dropped dead, Hargrim looked around. The others were looking at him as if a
second head had sprouted from his shoulders, and was quoting Shakespeare.
He
shrugged. "It's a Dwarf
thing." And then he went back to
tapping the walls. Then one block rang
hollow.
"HAH! I Knew that this wall looked
wrong!" He shrugged at their
renewed odd looks. "It's a Dwarf
thing."
Both
Dwarf and thief went at the false front of stone, but couldn't find the opening
mechanism. Kitsune tapped on Foxglove's
shoulder. "Let Me take a
stab at it." She prodded around,
feeling at the stones, her saffron robes concealing much of what she was
doing. Then, an irregularly shaped
section of wall pivoted, half swinging inwards, the other half swinging
outwards. Kitsune adopted her 'Zen Wisdom'
pose - "It's a Monk thing."
The
secret door led up a narrow, twisting stairway - don't they always? The stairway let up what appeared to be a
few flights, to another secret door.
Obviously, very trusting people.
The clockwork locking mechanism was easily opened from the inside. Probably one of those 'lift the candle' gimmicks
that are always in Vincent Price movies.
Past that, lay a large bed chamber.
The room was dusty, but not decrepit.
The furnishings were oddly split - most of the chairs and things were of
a simple, solid design that suggested a scholar. But there were other pieces, added in odd places, of a lighter
and more colorful design. The main
piece was a large enclosed bed, rather like the ones of Elizabethan times. The dust was thick, but the wood and cloth
were sound. Foxglove and Hargrim
checked it for traps, but the only surprize was a secret compartment in the
headboard of the bed, which held two wands and a set of ten rather nasty
looking throwing irons. Foxglove cast
IDENTIFY spells on the wands: a Wand of Ice Needles with 12 charges, and the
other one was a Wand of Paralysis, with 8 charges.
"The
magical equivalent of having a .45 under your pillow," Foxglove
decided. "Yes, obviously, very
trusting people."
The
rest was consistant with a couple's bedchamber - His and Hers wardrobes, with
clothing that was beginning to rot, a wash-stand with an ewer full of dust, a
lady's vanity, a man's valet, and two desks.
Foxglove opened the drawer on the sturdier desk, and found some writing
instuments, a couple of calculating devices, what looked like an Astrolabe's
twisted cousin, and a Journal.
Mornsong
forced the other desk open and found a matching Journal. The two mages compared the writing. "It's written plainly, in the Common
Tongue. You'd think that such 'trusting'
people would write in a cypher or something."
Foxglove
nodded, and pulled out her travelling spellbook. She studied it intently for a few minutes, and said, "Yes,
indeed, they would - UNCOVER SECRET WRITING!" Between the lines of script appeared more lines, uncovered only
by the power of the magic.
"Indeed, obviously very trusting people."
The
party was bushed - so far that day, they'd wriggled out from 12 death-traps,
fought 8 ambushes of sundry snake-thingies, taken apart 7 Golems, and had to
endure a Magic Mouth that spouted old Henny Youngman jokes. Leaving Foxglove and Mornsong to their
reading, the crew found places to settle down and got some sleep.
*****
J'Mira
woke up with the instinctive feeling that it was just before sunrise. The others were still asleep. Mornsong was getting her own shut-eye in an
overstuffed chair. J'Mira stretched and
yawned like a great cat. She saw
Foxglove watching her with detached appreciation. The Ranger struck a cheesecake pose, then laughed and got
up. "So, Foxy, you spend all
night reading that thing?"
"Good Lord, no. I got in my little cap naps. But I do think that I know now what's going
on here."
"Here,
as in here in this dungeon, or in the greater sense, within the campaign?"
"Well,
for the first - definitely yes. For the
second - who knows? I may be
holding the key to the entire scenario right here in my hands. But I haven't got enought information to see
it. Anyway, these Journals have
answered a question that I've always had about Role Playing Games."
"Ah,
remember, you're talking to the rookie?"
"Oh,
right. Y'see, 'Mira, in most of
these fantasy role playing games, you have all these different weird humanoid
to non-humanoid races all existing in the same world, all apparently constantly
at war with each other. Where did they
all come from? Why are they so
combative? Now, it's probably just the
result of Bad Writing, but these Journals suggest an alternate explaination.
"All
these different races may fight each other because it's their Sacred Duty. J'Mira, these Journals belong to a high
level Wizard who came here to create a new race, as part of a plan to achieve
Godhood. You see, apparently Gods
create mortal or demi-mortal races in order for these races to worship them. Gods need worship in order to grow and thrive,
maybe even to exist. This Wizard
created those snake-thingies down there, so that they would worship him. The reason that there is so much variation
among the snake things is our Wizardly host was trying to perfect his creation,
so that he could spring them on the world.
They would breed, conquer other races, extend their dominion, and widen
the worship of their Creator. In the
process, he would absorb their adoration, and the sacrifices of other living
beings to him-"
"Ick! Nice people!"
"Yeah,
well, nobody said that Apotheosis was gonna be pretty. Speaking of which, I think I know where the
owner of the frou-frou stuff in here came from. He mentions that he's going to have to give his creations a
second god, in order to assimilate the 'female dynamic' into his cult. He claims to be absorbing worship-energy and
becoming demi-divine at this point. A
few entries later, he starts talking about 'her'. I think he split himself into two, in order to be both Father and
Mother to these things, and started shacking up with himself."
"You
gotta be kidding!"
"Yeah,
well, you try living all alone up here in the boonies with just
reptiles for company - after a while, your Anima starts looking pretty
good!"
"So
where does all this business about why these races are always rumbling with
each other come in?"
"Well,
it seems that gods can both be born and die.
Or just fade away, or translate to another plane, or in some way make
room for new gods. So, new gods enter
the scene, and have to scare up worshippers.
They can either try to join a pantheon in the lower ranks-"
J'Mira
snickered, "I can just see it! The
God of Bussing Tables!"
"-or
they can swipe worshippers from other gods, or they can make their own. So, you have new sentient races coming into
existence, with Divine Mandates handed down from their Creators to conquer and
extend their dominion (and the worship of their God) as far as they can, by
whatever means they can. And all of
this is done in a setting with finite resources."
"Yowch! And I guess having prisoners you can
sacrifice to your God only makes it even nastier."
"Which
is why so many 'Gods' like our 'host' make their creations as mean and combat
worthy as possible. Though I suspect
that there may be an element of projecting their own personality onto their
creation as well. Y'know, some prefer
their creations to have great illusion-casting ability, others are into fire
powers, others just like them big'n violent and so on."
"I'm
not even gonna try to figure out what making those snake things says
about our 'host'."
"Actually,
not that much. If I'm reading this
Journal right, our boy is pretty new at this.
In his first entries, he talks about his frustrations making those
Golems. I think that making Golems is
an intermediary step toward creating a self-aware species (which would explain
my people keep making the damn things!)
He mentions the difficulty in finding a -quote- 'Life Base' -unquote-
that responds to his magic. My guess is
that when he has a stable worship-base, he'll move this species entirely to a
new location, leaving his mistakes behind, and start from scratch creating a
new race. In the later entires, he
keeps harping that his feminine alter-ego and he can't agree what form the
'Next Stage' should take."
A
puckish smile crept over J'Mira's face.
"Y'mean, 'my God-Wife doesn't understand me?'"
"Do
they ever?"
"Trust
you two to miss the real point here," came from the corner. Mornsong yawned and stretched. She picked up a hairbrush, knocked off the
dust, and started working the tangles out of her golden curls. "The Real point in those
Journals is that there may be a couple of upstart Demi-Gods running
this place. I rather doubt that they
will be that happy with us for killing their worshippers. Though, from the state of their quarters,
I'd say that they've probably left for greener pastures."
Hargrim
got up and joined the conversation.
"Not a chance. D'you
honestly think that the Worldkeeper would write up all this, just to have the
Demi-Gods-in-Residence be on vacation in Miami?"
Foxglove
quirked a grimace. "Give him his
due - when the Dwarf is right, he's right! All the state of these quarters means is that they don't feel the
need to sleep anymore. Which argues
convincingly for their moving higher up the scale of neo-divine power. They probably spend their time at their
center of worship, wherever that may be.
Hey Theocles!
Wakey, wakey! Your
expertise is needed!"
Theocles
woke with a start. Foxglove filled him
in on their surmises so far. He stroked
his beard a bit. "Hmmm...being
a new cult for a new race, these demi-gods would want to make their place of
worship as central to their creations' lives as possible. That would mean either placing it in the
floorplan of this place so that they interacted with it as often as
possible-"
Sir
Justin interrupted out of left field.
"If they'd done that, we'd have run into it. The main hall of the bailey of this place
would be perfect for that, but the snake-things were using it for a bazaar/town-square. Though all those two-headed snake icons with
the golden haloes around each head make a lot more sense now."
Theocles
resumed, "-OR they could situate it in some place that doubled for some
other vital purpose: food, breeding, healing, or such."
Hargrim
snapped his fingers. "The Hot
Springs. This place has to be situated
on a hot springs, right? What if
these springs are also magical healing springs, like the one that Mornsong
needs to revive Zohar, once we get the Unicorn's Horn? If the springs are magical, wouldn't these
demi-gods try to use that to help breed their slithery little children?"
Mornsong
nodded thoughtfully. "Yes. If the springs are magical, then they could
be used to help keep the breeding females fertile, heal the sick and wounded,
and maybe even help grow whatever they use as food around here."
Foxglove
snapped her fingers. "Breeding
females! Score another one for the
Altitudinally Challenged guy with the beard!" She started flipping through one of the Journals. "It says here in the feminine half's
Journal (oh, gawd, she puts little hearts on top of her 'I's!)
that the 'Nine Queens' are giving her problems. They must have created a set of specialized breeding females -
like ant queens. They would probably
keep their hold over the snake things by designing these 'queens' so that they
can only live in warm water. If they
are using magical springs, that would explain why there are so many of
the damn things - and they might be multi-tasking the springs to make their position
as strong as possible. So, if we take
out these springs, we pull the plug on the whole operation, and we can get the
Grimoire without the Fang Gang climbing all over our asses. So, where is the Demi-God's Chapel?"
Justin
guessed, "It's probably as high up as possible, for defensive purposes,
and to suggest an acension to heaven.
Probably at the very top of the tower, with the water pumped up into
cisterns."
"No,"
Hargrim insisted. "The other
direction. As far down as
possible. The further down, the closer
to the source of the heat, and maybe the magic, so the warmer the water and the
more potent the magic. Besides, it's
even more defensible than a tower, and you don't have to worry about the
plumbing."
Foxglove
put a hand on the Dwarf's shoulder and said, "Three in a row! You are on a roll, Spudley!"
Hargrim
started to put his hand around Foxglove, but jerked it back sharply. Foxglove put the dagger back in its
sheath. "But that completely
scuppers any chance of getting the snake-things off of our backs by attacking
the chapel. If our guesses are right,
the key to this whole operation is those hot springs - and they're a geological
feature. We can't just blast them and
be done with it."
Hargrim
tapped his hammer in the palm of his hand.
"Nonsense! We just
take out the main load-bearing supports of this place, and we drop the entire castle
into the natural cavern where they've probably set up the chapel. We take out the springs, the chapel, the
Demi-Gods, the breeding queens, their 'royal guards', any sentry Golems, and
most of the snake-things all in one fell swoop."
"AND
take out all of Us in the same swoop!" Foxglove
snapped. "I can't teleport all
of us with my scroll! It will only move
up to Four people! And you were doing So
Well, Spudwart! But you're right
about One Thing - with all the traps around this place, going down into the
chapel is definitely doing things the hard way." Her eyes widened as a new thought occured to
her. "SO, we _don't_ go down,
we go _up_!"
All
eyes looked upwards. Kitsune said,
"Y'mean go over the roof, to the tower, and avoid the snake things, and
conjurelings and traps altogether?"
Foxglove
touched her nose with a grin.
Hargrim
checked out the layout of the with an expert's eye. "That peaked ceiling definitely suggests that we're right
next to a roof. All we have to do is
break through and we should be able to climb out onto the roof."
Mornsong
said, "I can sense that the sun has risen. It should be cold enough from the night that the snake-things
won't be out on the outer battlements, and the first morning light should be
sending the conjure-things back to whatever hell-hole they crawled out of. If we're going to do this, we do it now, and
eat hard tack while we're on the move."
Foxglove
and Kitsune hauled Hargrim up to where he could employ his hammer to his best
advantage. A few minutes later, they
were hauling up Sir Justin as the last of the party out. And there, only a few hundred yards away,
over the gables and ramparts, loomed the black tower, where the Grimoire That
Is Not To Be Named was kept.
*****
Foxglove
slid down the silk rope like a spider, facing down, her cloak tied to her
ankles to keep from flapping. She slid
down the center of the spiral staircase at the center of the tower. Down at the bottom of the stairwell was a
bookstand with the Grimoire That Is Not To Be Named atop it. As she slid down, she noted the gears,
levers, compartments, weights, counter-balances, pulleys, and block &
tackle stored in the upper compartments of the tower. Which explained why the Grimoire wasn't at the very top, as she'd
expected. This place must have more
traps and alarms than Fort Knox. Then
she noticed the little forearm long snakelings curled up asleep among the
works. They must be what was keeping
all the elaborate mechanisms going.
They probably competed with each other, designing more complex and
arcane traps. It was probably the only
way that little guys like them could shine in the eyes of their demi-divine
creators.
She
slid down the last length of cord, and was right over the book. The book was open. She began to shut the book.
Then it struck her - traps. Lots
of Traps. There might be one of those
trap-doors under it that it would drop into if the weight weren't spread over a
precise area. If she shut the book,
then the mass would be concentrated in too small an area, and disappear. Also, if this book were one of the
Demi-Gods' true treasures, it would more heavily guarded than a vestal virgin's
virtue. Then she thought of all that
clockwork nastiness overhead.
She
gingerly edged the book to the edge, where it wouldn't be directly over the
trap door when she shut it, but still on the boostand, keeping any
pressure-switch traps untripped.
Scintilla pulled the bag of copper pieces, that her mistress had brought
along for such an emergency, from her sash.
She prepared to set the bag on the pedestal replace the weight of the
book. Foxglove shut the cover of the
book. She was about to make the switch,
when she saw the lettering on the cover of the book.
"OH,_I_DO_NOT_BE-FUCKING-LIEVE_THIS! Scintilla, forget the bag, just go up,
okay?"
She
righted herself on the the rope, and gave it three sharp tugs. Kitsune and Hargrim pulled them up quickly.
"Where
is it?" Hargrim yelled at the top of his lungs.
Foxglove
collected herself, "Hargrim, I have to apologize - you were right. A judicious amount of wanton destruction is exactly
what's called for here. But not from
below. From Above."
They
threw the rope down the exterior of the tower, and rappeled down the side. Foxglove went last, and swung the rope a bit
so that she stood over a particular spot, which she marked with a big 'X' in
chalk. Then she dropped all the rest of
the way.
"Okay,
Spudmuffin, 'X' marks the spot.
Destruction is your forte, Hargrim - let's see if you can bring that
tower directly down on top of that-" she pointed at a gable
in the center of the fortress mass, "-which should destroy the central
pinings of this pile. Or at the very
least kill as many of the snake things as possible and make most of those damn
traps unworkable."
"Okay,
but first, I want you to repeat that bit about me being absolutely right
- in front of everybody."
Hargrim
wound up his hammer and let it fly. The
thunderbolt hit the tower, and brought it tumbling down directly down on the
target gable. The central roof caved
in, and the concussion kept tearing through the building, going through floor
after floor. The combined mechanical
power contained within the tower and the building exploded. As the stunned adventurers watched from the
safety of the sidelines, all the traps activated at the same time. Bladed pendulums came flying into the air,
tumbling end over end. Spears shot out
at nothing. Crushing walls went flying
without their mates. In spots, geysers
of acid, lye and flame gushed out, interfering with each other and other
mis-triggered traps. Animated statues
danced themselves apart.
"Dear
God," Theocles mused, "what did they do, scan in Grimtooth's
Traps, and say 'Yes'?"
"Worse,"
grumped Foxglove.
At
the end of this Wylie Coyote's nightmare of Rube Goldberg mayhem, a huge brass
figure in the shape of a 'rubber duckie' bath toy landed with a *thud*
only a few yards away from the party.
"Y'know,"
Hargrim mused aloud, "it woulda almost been worth going through all
that just to know what that-" he pointed at the 'duckie'
"-was all about."
As
the crashing and screaming faded, the adventurers peered over the edge of the
pit. The entire complex had caved in. Then another geyser erupted from the center
of the hole. Hot water came gushing up,
and began to fill the hole.
J'Mira
turned to Mornsong. "Looks like we
won't have to go looking very far for that healing spring, after we get
that Unicorn's Horn, now will we?"
Mornsong
was about to make a rejoinder, when there was an explosion under the surface of
the water. It boiled, and then
something erupted up from under the water.
No, it was two somethings - or two somethings conjoined
together. What it was was two of the
snake-things, but huge, glowing and glorious, joined together at the tail. One end of the serpentine siamese twin was
male, with a broad chest, powerful arms, and a very human head that had a
medusaeid wreath of snakes as a beard.
The other end was gloriously female, with wide hips, bountiful breasts
and a gorgeous face with a slithering crown of snake-hair. As one, the two Demi-Gods screamed in rage.
"A
hundred and thirty years of work, shot to Hell!" HE
thundered.
"My
Babies! My Children! All Dead!" SHE shrieked.
The
male half formed flaming serpents in his hands and threw them at the
adventurers. Justin intercepted the
first firesnake, and Theocles dispelled the second one in mid-air. Then Theocles brought up his Holy Symbol,
which began its light-and-music show.
He started his fire-and-brimstone preacher act. In so many words, he told the Odd Couple
that they were very bad people, and that if they were very nice to him, he
wouldn't tell on them to the Big Guys upstairs. As which point, Ozzie and Harriet totally lost it.
HE
started throwing firesnakes like a pitching machine, and SHE reached down into
the water with a golden bolt of power.
"ARISE, My Champions!
AVENGE your brothers and sisters!
ATTEND to your Lord and Lady!"
A
gilded onion-bulb dome broke through the water, bringing with it what appeared
to be an Indian-style mini-temple (sort of a metaphysical 7-11). The graceful dome was supported by eight
large metal statues, and several larger than average snake-things were clinging
to the statues for dear life. Inside
the temple could barely be seen a large tub-like arrangement, with three
abnormally large snake-things peeking out.
Hargrim
wound up his hammer, but Foxglove risked a beating to stay his hand. "Hargirm! You've already used up one of your charges! Without Zohar's staff, your hammer is our
Big Gun! We have to use your charges very
carefully!"
"I
always use my hammer carefully!"
Foxglove
made a face that suggested that she was politickly refraining from
comment. "Anyway, may I
suggest that you strike at the point where Ozzie and Harriet's tails
join?"
"How
will that hurt them?"
"Well,
they gotta be joined for a reason, right? Probably some sort of power sharing arrangement, a Yin-Yang
thang. So, break that link, and it can't
be good for them."
Hargrim
grunted in a way that suggested that he'd prefer it if she let him fight his
battles in peace, and resumed his wind-up.
He let fly, and the thunderhammer neatly separated the Demi-Gods at the
tails. A flaming ichor burned between
them for a moment, and then died out.
HE roared like a volcano, and if anything, got bigger and meaner. SHE shrieked like a banshee and wrapped
herself around the onion bulb of the temple.
She hammered on the dome, and the eight statues carefully lowered the
dome, sealing off the tub within. The
snake-things that had been clinging to the statues picked up weapons and
started to swim toward the adventurers.
J'Mira
rummaged through the carryalls, and handed Kitsune the throwing irons that
they'd found in the Wizard's bedchamber.
Kitsune looked questioningly at the Ranger. "They were supposed to be quick-stop weapons for the
Wizards, right?" J'Mira explained.
"So, who are the ones most likely to try to sneak up on the wizards
as they slept? Rebellious snake-things,
right? So maybe they have either an
enchantment or a poison that is specifically targeted at them?"
Kitsune
hefted the weighty throwing irons, and sent one flying at a snake-thing that
was slithering up out of the water, catching it in the eye, and taking it
down. "OR maybe they're just
really good throwing weapons!"
HE
was keeping both Sir Justin and Brother Theocles very busy deflecting HIS
incoming wrath. Foxglove pulled out the
Drakylon's Pearl, and sent a couple of firebursts back at HIM. HE started for a second, and looked
carefully at the pearl. HE pointed one
scaley finger at Foxglove and thundered, "SEIZE that!"
The
'statues' joined the attacking snake-things, which concentrated on
Foxglove. She backpedaled a bit, and
sent a spray of violet flame over them.
The snake-things seemed to have a good amount of natural resistance to
heat and fire, and the Iron Golems only warmed up a bit. Foxglove reached into her sash and pulled
out the Wand of Paralysis. She spent
three of its charges, before the rest of the snakelings were at sword's reach.
Kitsune
used up the last of the throwing irons.
The snake-things were tough - the damage she'd done with the irons would
have crippled normal people. She picked
up her shinobi-zui; time to handle it the hard way. She extended the naginata blade with
a deft snap of the haft. J'Mira had put
down her bow and picked up her staff.
She joined the 'monk' in a back-to-back stance as the serpentoids
closed. J'Mira spared an exasperated
glare at Avon who, was frantically tuning, to no apparent results.
Mornsong
held her head back, her arms raised to the sky. All her attention was focused on the play of mystic forces
contained within the wind above. Though
her eyes were shut tight, she was all too aware of what was happening. She waited as the ill-natured beasts swarmed
up out of the hot water onto the wrack that separated them from the party of
adventurers. One part of her
sympathized with the serpent-folk. They
were protecting their home and hearth, obeying their Gods and Creators, and
avenging the deaths of most of their kindred.
Yet she knew that they were also abominations, ill-made travesties of
nature, created not out of love, but out of an arrogant sorcerer's hubris. They had been born in cold-blooded disregard
for the proper order of things, and would only bring pain and misery if allowed
to live. The Great Mother could be loving
and kind - but the Great Mother could also be utterly ruthless when need be. As the last of the serpentoids reached the
point of no return, Mornsong let the icey blast of winterwind that she'd
brought down from the high peaks blow over them.
J'Mira
startled at this - she was neither used to nor dressed for this kind of weather. "Hey!
Pointy-Ears! What the
fuck do you think you are doing?"
Kitsune
tapped her on the shoulder and pointed.
As if in answer, the snake-warriors were beating a hasty retreat, back
into the warm, nurturing water, their retreat covered by the thick mist formed
by the steam mixing with the cold air.
Nor
was Lady Mornsong finished. She waited,
as the Iron Golems cleared the water.
When the last metal-shod foot was out of the spring, she played her
second weather-card. A series of
lightning bolts struck from the cloud that had brought the icey gale, and
lanced down into the pool. HER grieving
moans mixed with the hisses of the dying snake-warriors. SHE slipped down into the mists. HE renewed HIS attacks with renewed vigor.
Foxglove
shouted over her shoulder, "Good One, Avalyn! Now, raise the wind, but don't dispel
it yet! Hold it for my cue! Hargrim, by me and keep your hammer
ready!" Then, she concentrated the
full fury of the Drakylon's Pearl at the lead Iron Golem. It absorbed the heat, and was glowing red
hot as it reached for the Pearl.
"NOW, Avalyn! Chill
him!"
Mornsong
brought down a sleet-heavy gust of wind, which over-cooled the smouldering
Golem. The rapid change in heat cracked
the Golem's iron hide. Not needing a
cue where destruction is involved, Hargrim lashed out at the point where the
cracking was the worst, and totally shattered the construct.
That
was the combination that beat the Iron Golems - Drakylon fire, Winter ice and
Dwarven hammer. In time, the rubble was
littered with bits and pieces of shattered Golem.
Justin
and Theocles weren't having anywhere near as much success. Justin was busy deflecting the different
forms of devastation that HE was chucking their way, and thanking whatever
proper gods there were that HE wasn't up to throwing around Curses or other
reality deviations, not just prettied up energy bolts. Theocles was exhauting himself throwing
Anathemas and Spirit Hammers at the glowing upstart.
Finally,
Justin couldn't handle any more. He
began to be forced back by the sheer fury of HIS attacks. He slipped and fell, leaving Theocles
open. Seeing the Paladin fall, Foxglove
rushed to his side, and forced one of her Healing Potions to his lips. As the Cleric shifted his tactics to
defense, Avon began playing in earnest.
He'd been holding back since he found the proper tune, as he couldn't
screen out the others if he was going to affect something in the Demi-God
range. The tune was the raw essence of
Sex - simple rutting, without dilution by more tender feelings. The tune was what Jazz and Rock'n Roll only
suggested at. It grabbed you by the
groin and didn't let go. The raunchy
music washed over the scene. SHE rose
up out of the mist, HER rage unabated, only redirected in new directions. SHE ran HER hands up HIS flank. HE looked down at HER, derailed from HIS
rage. Fury became Lust, and THEY
entwined around each other.
The
adventurers tried to take advantage of THEIR distraction, but most of them were
wrapped up in the spell of the music.
Foxglove felt Justin stiffen in her arms. He pushed the potion away from his lips and pulled her to
him. Not that she minded - the music
was pushing buttons in her that she didn't even know she had. She flowed into his embrace like warm
wax. Justin kissed her, and her mind
began to spin. Foxglove - or more to
the point, Simon - had never been with a man.
Indeed, he'd never given it much thought one way or the other. But this was so different from being with a
woman, even a beautiful, passionate woman like Kitsune. It was so forceful, compelling
without being invasive. She thrilled as
she felt his gloved hand slip under her blouse, push aside the chest-band, and
cup a breast. As his tongue slipped
into her mouth, Foxglove cursed the fact that she was wearing trousers, and she
fumbled with the laces.
Avon
managed to keep playing with fervor, even as J'Mira was climbing up his legs,
licking his inseam.
Hargrim
pulled Kitsune to him, stashed his stogie away and kissed her
passionately. Swept away by the power
of the music, Kitsune let him.
The
only two of the group not passionately clutching at each other were Theocles
and Mornsong, who looked at each other torn between ardor and revulsion.
Then
Kitsune felt the ardor give way to revulsion as the taste of tobacco penetrated
the fog of lust. She pulled away and
then realized who she'd been kissing.
And then she was really revolted. She slapped him and said, "Hargrim, you Idiot! THEY aren't paying attention! You have one more charge for that hammer of
yours, right?"
"Yeah? So What?" He pulled her back. She
slapped him again.
"So? See that glowing golden icon inside the
temple? The big gold two-headed snake
thing, Moron! Smash it!"
Hargrim
pulled himself up and poured all his frustration into his swing. He spun his hammer and let it fly.
The
hammer hit the icon square in the middle, and it exploded in a blaze of glory.
There
were two explosions, as THEY climaxed like an atomic bomb. The entire pit was awash in a blinding flare
of divine energy.
They
were never quite clear whether it was the flash of deific power, or J'Mira
dragging him down to the ground that stopped Avon's playing.
Foxglove
and Justin kept at it for a blissful while, but then his 'better judgement'
took hold. He stopped kissing and
caressing her, over her shrill objections.
She looked daggers over at J'Mira and Avon, snogging a few feet
away. "Y'couldn't wait a
few minutes, now, couldja?" she snarled as she hitched up her
trousers. "NO, you just hadda
go at it, never mind that there are other people in the world!"
The
conjoined twin demi-gods were gone, as was much of the temple. However, there were two somethings still
there - One was a very human looking elderly man in snake-skin robes laying in
the water near the edge. Near him,
rearing protectively was a very large, very capable looking snake warrior in
armor and shield of gold plate, holding a very impressive looking great
sword. The Snake Champion threateningly
waved the sword at them, which gave off a jubilant hiss.
Justin
secured his trews, picked up his sword and shield and went at the Snake
Champion with a war-cry. Foxglove
looked after him with a disgusted look on her face. She strummed the ground under her with the fingers of one hand,
and even Hargrim wasn't fool enough to say anything. The two Champions met with a furious clang, and they began
whacking away at each other. Every time
that the Snake Champion's sword hit Justin's shield, sparks flew off, but
neither weapon was so much as even marred.
The Snake Champion had a slight advantage in the water, and pressed it
with every chance. Then Justin stumbled
on an uneven piece of rubble under the surface of the water and fell. The Snake Champion rushed to finish it with
the greatsword held high overhead. A
needle-thin beam of pale blue light hit it, and it froze in mid-stroke. Foxglove rushed down to help him. "Justin! are you all right?"
"Did
you freeze him? Why did you
interfere? This was Sacred Combat! There can be no interference,
woman!"
As
soon as the word 'woman' was out of his mouth, Foxglove's rapier was at his
throat. Her gray eyes looked like cold
stainless steel into his shocked brown ones.
"Very well," she said too calmly, and sheathed her blade. With nary a look back, she tapped the Snake
Champion with the Paralysis Wand, freeing it, and began to climb out of the
pit.
As
the reptile continued the single combat without any further ado, Foxglove
pulled out of the pit. The others
pointedly avoided her gaze. Sensing the
powerful emotions from her mistress, Scintilla dared to ask, "You all
right, Boss?"
Foxglove
snatched the imp from her shoulder and held her in a tight fist right up to her
snarling face. "And Why wouldn't
I be Okay?" she hissed.
Scintilla
gave her mistress a helpless grin, "Oh, no reason a'tall,
Boss! <choke!> Just making conversation!"
Alone,
Foxglove climbed up the exterior of the stump of the tower. Inside what was left of the tower, the
Grimoire That Is Not To Be Named lay within a cage of sprung traps. The picket of extended death-gimmicks looked
like a demented typewriter designed by the Marquis DeSade which had
exploded. Foxglove marched up, pushed a
few of the trap things aside, and grabbed the book. When the book was clear of the pedestal, the pedestal dropped
into a trap door and a thing rose up out of the containment pit with a
hearty roar. It was a roughly spherical
creature without arms or legs, that floated in the air. A single eye predominated the body, with a
crescent shaped, jagged toothed maw just under the eye. Ten tentacles radiated out from the
creature, each with an eye at the tip.
As the creature began to roar again, Foxglove, without flinch or hesistation
drove the tip of her rapier right into the central eye, piercing the creature. It paused in mid-air, just long enough for
Foxglove to retract and sheath her blade, and dropped back into the pit. Foxglove walked away calmly, with an air of
having vented satisfactorily.
As
she rejoined the party, Justin was struggling out of the pit, cut and bleeding,
waving the Snake Champion's greatsword in triumph. Foxglove primly walked past him without a word.
J'Mira
looked at Kitsune, and said, "Do you think that these healing waters can
mend a broken heart?"
And
then the two 'females' suddenly realized something. "Healing Waters?" they shouted at
each other in unison. They hurried down
into the pit, dragged all the snake things out of the water and finished them
off, once and for all. They heard
rasping sounds from the old man in the snakeskin robes.
Checking
the edge of the pit to make sure that none of the more Straight Arrow types
were watching, Kitsune pulled a thin bladed knife from her robes. She turned the man over and looked into his
eyes as she moved the point of the dagger to the place where the skull opens up
to allow the spinal cord to enter.
"It's finally over, Old Man," she whispered.
The
Old Man looked up into her eyes with malicious triumph. "No," he rasped, "it's only
begun."
Either
way, Kitsune ended his involvement with the point of the stiletto.
wbw
*****
Back
at the encampment, in their tent, Kitsune asked Foxglove, "Why didn't you
just take the Grimoire yada yada yada from the Tower? Why all the business with bringing the tower
down?"
"Well,"
Foxglove said through her fifth cup of wine since getting back, "there I
was dangling upside down from the rope, really getting into the whole disarming
the booby-traps schtick, when I saw the name of the Grimoire That Is Not
To Be Named, and realized that no matter what I did, there would be some
kind of back-up. I should have realized
it when the Wizard's Journal kept complaining that the Grimoire was - and I
quote - 'Over-exact in trivial detail, but vague in the essentials... Details of inconsistant histories... Taxonomies of absurd creatures... Catalogs of absurd works and pointless wonders... Descriptions of sorceries without sense or
proportion.' At the end, the Wizard
decided that it was only good as bait to lure the unwary to his
keep." And to illustrate, Foxglove
pulled out the book and showed the cover to Kitsune-
"ARDUIN"
Foxglove
absently dropped the book and began drinking again. Kitsune wrapped an arm around Foxglove. "You think You've got it bad? Shit!
I'm Ruined! I'm gonna
have to become a Lesbian! I
_kissed_ Hargrim!"
<eeeewwww!!>,
they squealed together, heartbreak temporarily forgotten in nausea.
[Author's
Note: The Arduin Grimoire is a supplement to the Dungeons & Dragons Role
Playing Game, which has a well deserved reputation for ridiculously overdone
magic, creatures and traps. I realized
that this is very much a Gamers' inside joke, and apologize to the Mundanes
among my readers. But, honestly, that's
the way it wrote, and I couldn't make it work without it. Sorry.]
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
I Think We Need A New Monster Manual
Two
days' ride - and three random encounters (a pack of anarcho-syndicalist
hobgoblins, a Jabberwock, and an Anti-Paladin guarding a ford) - later, they
were at the edge of a very thick forest. Lady Mornsong insisted that camp be struck at the edge and that
she go in alone. In her pavillion, she
underwent a purification ritual, one that demanded that water from the nearest
river be brought in by hand by virgins.
Foxglove muttered that the damn drama queen had finally managed to
figure out a way to get her to haul water for her. The water was further consecrated in Avalyn's Chalice, and poured
over her. When she was scrubbed to her
satisfaction, she dressed up in a gown of white silk (despite the fact that the
pre-christian Britons knew absolutely nothing about silk), with a a veil
and a bouquet of blue flowers.
As
Mornsong was about to enter the forest, Theocles asked, "Aren't you going
to have some kind of backup? After all,
if you run into anything that isn't a Unicorn in there, won't you be
breaking the sanctity of your own ritual by using violence?"
Foxglove
raised an eyebrow. Theocles was
actually showing a little leadership for a change!
Mornsong
smiled beatifically and breathed, "I am in no danger. This is a sacred woods - no Unclean
beast would dare enter here. I
must show perfect trust if I am to recieve the Unicorn's horn. I place myself completely in
the hands of the Great Mother."
As
every other eye was watching Avalyn make her grand entrance into the mystic
wood, Foxglove and Kitsune were already making ready. J'Mira also was about to start, but Foxglove put a hand on her
shoulder. "Sorry, 'Mira," she
whispered, "you'd probably do better than us in these woods, but pointy
ears is right about one thing - she's never gonna get that horn, unless
the only ones who go in are virgins." She flicked resentful eyes at Justin. "Y'know, I wish I couldn't go on
this one, but what can you do?"
With that, she and Kitsune were up in the branches, moving like shadows.
Avalyn
proceded down the forest path, one hesitating step at a time. The towering majestic oaks were as the
vaulting walls of a gothic cathedral, and the lesser trees were as the pews. Brilliant light filtered through the canopy
up ahead. One hesitating step at a
time, she approached the Holy of Holies.
Then the trees opened up into a glorious green glade under a brilliant
sapphire blue sky. In the center of the
glade, nestled in a bed of tall grass, was a Unicorn.
He
ws everything that Avalyn had ever dreamed he would be - more graceful
than a gazelle, more powerful than a horse, more glorious than a lion and more
serene than a swan. He was pristine
white, unsullied by soil or sin. The
ivory spire of his horn jutted forth from a perfectly proportioned head, and
his mane was a line of silver fire. His
cloven hooves were dainty but sound on long powerful shanks. Avalyn stood there, breathless in her rapt
adoration of this perfect creature.
From
her perch high in the oaks, even as jaded an observer as Foxglove couldn't help
but silently agree. He was magnificent
- both ethereal and earthy, spiritual yet oh so carnal, refined yet dynamic,
gentle yet so very wild. A paradox,
made more valid by the assimilation of its contradictions.
The
crystal moment was changed, but not shattered as the Stallion noticed Avalyn at
the edge of the glade. Avalyn edged
forward, almost afraid to touch the glory.
Foxglove and Kitsune watched spellbound. The Unicorn rose and trotted toward Avalyn. She began to run to meet him, as she might
to rejoin a long-lost loved one. She
ran, her arms outstretched.
Then
she noticed that he wasn't slowing down.
Indeed, he was picking up speed!
Then
it suddenly occurred to her that a large, very male animal with a long horn
was charging straight at her!
Avalyn
shrieked, hitched up her gown and began running as fast as her legs would carry
her. It ran through her head that all
those old stories of Unicorn hunters sending out virgins to capture unicorns
had been told by the hunters, not the virgins. Indeed, nobody ever mentions what happens to
the virgins afterwards. Of course, the
stories say that the Unicorn is supposed to trot up and gently lay it's head in
the virgin's lap. But what are Unicorn
hunters supposed to tell a virgin - 'That's right, Elspeth, we want you to
go out there and let yourself get