Smirk's epic retelling of the Villevielle portal storm!

Posts : 3812 Join date : 2017-05-16

So off our heroes – and Mihai – went to the lair of Mr Griggs to recover the ledger and possibly do some wetwork. And while Broody Boy was an absolute virgin when it came to assassination, the sheer ignobility of his foe was not unknown to him, nor was the fact that not 24 hours after his arrival in town, Mr Griggs had already resumed his year-long promise of killing him and all his bitches – his mercy last they’d met having clearly meant nothing to the evil rapscallion.

So after my lovely morning with the scrumptious Zelk Freeron and her curvaceous sense of humour, we all take up positions to meet and greet any free-spirited souls that wander out of Mr Griggs’ office, and promptly serve them tea and ass-kicking aplenty (there were cookies, but they all somehow ended up in Steve’s pockets).

So after a trek through the sewers wholly unworthy of Miss Windscarf’s illustrious person, the party, ready to party, finally arrives through the south entrance. And so they proceed to cautiously party their way up the joint, diving into the Shroud here and there – because they just can’t get enough of that shit now – to avoid some traps, then going back and disarming said traps, because the OCD is just that strong with these people. All the while feeling the World Bender getting ready to throw its own party a little ways up north of their position. So after getting bored of their weekend EOD, the Doom Guys finally decide it might be a good idea to fit into their schedule to go check out the unworldly pull from cosmic entity currently getting stronger by the minute next door.

They go in the Shroud again, bypassing all those pesky traps and security goons and whatnot, until they come face to face with their greatest adversary yet: a door welded shut. Fearlessly bickering about what they should do about this daunting obstacle, Steve decides to do the sensible thing and blast the shit out of it. And so he does, he gathers his magical power of magic, a blaze starts crackling in his hand before he hurls at the barricade, resulting in a big badda boom that would have certainly announced to every Shrieker within earshot that there’s nothing to see here. Splinters fly, chunks of wood clunk burning to the ground, it’s freaking glorious.

Which is what the Goblins on the other end must have thought as well, as Amber and the boys arrive to find them kneeling with their hands in their air – like they really really care – looking really enthusiastic about whatever is it they’re doing. Now I’m all for religious freedom, Dark Lord that I am, but after what we’d already heard about these guys in addition to the ever-growing swell of Shroud pull that started to dizzy them the moment they popped back into the real world, I was really starting to think the Goblins weren’t on the up and up. And I guess the guys thought so too, because they decided the best greeting under the circumstances was a fireball to the face of every last one of them.

Now I’m not gonna lie, what happened next was pretty grizzly. The lucky ones died right there and then, but there were some other poor bastards that took a little while. I really really hope they were assholes, because that’s not a death I wish on anyone except Jerry and Phil and his pals – and even then I’d settle for quick and painless, which this bunch of Gobs absolutely didn’t get. Now urgency can be a real bitch for which extreme measures are called for, but unfortunately they fell a little short this time, as the happy campers soon found out once the freaking portals started to open.

So yeah, normal mundane banal extraction mission turns into cosmic clusterfuck before anyone knew what was going on. One of the portals opens up right on top of them, nothing but black on the other side. Then they hear growling.

So out first contender, right out of Portal No.1, is a big ugly motherfucker that looks like a cross between a gorilla and Grinning Bertha from the infirmary in Basic – trust me, you did NOT want to get injured on a Monday. Except if you’re Steve of course, who decides that a life-size statue of Grinning Bertha is something he really wants in his life when he casts Petrify on the thing. Bertha though, he’s having none of it. He shakes off the spell and gives Steve the lazy eye as he mutters something nobody could understand but I’m sure translated as Wait for Monday, sugar, much to Steve’s disappointment. Mihai of course decides he can’t stand for that kind of language around his sister and springs over to it with his oversized Sword of Compensation as he brings it down on the creature in an effort to bring it down. The sword goes woosh, and then chop as it finds its seven foot mark and cuts a big bloody gash that makes Bertha howl in pain. It doesn’t quite bring it down, but it’s ok as Fluffle steps in and points his finger at the creature – and at this point I’m really hoping the thing is not an ambassador, because we totally botched the diplomatic approach just now – he gathers his Fairy Power in his right index and BLASTS Bertha with the cutest little fireball I’ve ever seen. The impact is downright adorable, singes a little bit of its fur, and I’m sure Bertha thought right there and then that Fluffle was so cute that he could just eat him right up in one chomp – or at least that’s how he looked at him. Fluffle, of course, looked kinda squeamish about it, so Konrad steps in for a word while Gregory’s good men finally start realizing not all may be sunshine and rainbows in their shithole. But back to Konrad, he feels the direct approach isn’t really what the situation calls for, and so points his finger at Bertha for his own brand of problem solving.

Now for a little dose of sanity here before we dive off the deep end, a Curse usually results in some kind of magical disability applied to the target – you either lose the ability to do something, or become weaker to some specific element, that sort of thing – what in the military is normally known as a debuff. The moment Konrad’s curse hits Bertha, the big hulking toothy mountain of furry muscle turns into a chicken.

I wish I was making that up, it turned into a freaking chicken. Now look, there’s a lot of shit I can talk about and try to make funny – and you’d really think a big hulking werewolf-type monster turning into a chicken just writes itself, but I just feel awkward at this point. The chicken clucks all angry at Konrad, because it just turned into a chicken – I know I’d be angry if I suddenly just stepped into another world and just got turned into a harmless small animal.

"Huh, that's never happened before..."

Konrad is about to cast at it, but then figures it’s not worth the Mana to finish it off. Theo has no such reservation and moves in with a low swing of his flail, and – get this – TRIPS the chicken off its feet. The thing falls on its ass and kicks about trying to get up, but can’t, and at this point Mihai is feeling just as weirded out as I am, a problem Théo clearly doesn’t have when he follows up with a downward smash and ends Bertha’s life in the most baffling, undignified way I could ever conceive of. I, uh… I’ll let miss Windscarf speak for me on this one.

"...The hell?"

As well as the random peeping thug that opens a hole in the northern wall. – "The hell?"

Everyone’s feeling very flabbergasted right now, so it’s the perfect time to add to the freakshow by having yet another delightful netherspawn step out from the dark depths of planet horrible over here. Contestant No.2 is tall lean, purple, dresses really fashionable and HAS TENTACLES COMING OUT OF ITS MOUTH!

I mean, Zelk thought I was making this shit up but I didn’t care at this point. I sprang out from my position and ran for the basement, but I guess the day just didn’t have squid on the menu for me because a bunch of – and I know how this shit is gonna sound – walking skeletons just suddenly pour out of the entrance and make straight for me and Zelk.

Did I say straight for me and Zelk? I meant I WISH they’d made straight for me and Zelk, bony bastards pour out of the wall sphincter like they’re on bargain sale and start spreading onto the street every which way. You know what a bitch containing that sort of thing is? Zelk knows, because she summons up a pair of huge, round, scorching hot spheroids of fiery domination that crackle and churn, and crushes a full two handfuls of rackety rascals between them, not a bone left standing in the wake of her fireballs – really impressive, the power of an Osprey Military Black Mage. Then I lift my middle finger, another fifteen erupt into black flames and crumble to the floor. But no time to wallow in how much better I am, because the crazy is out in full force back at the warehouse.

"It's—it's Mihai!" – squeals Griggs Thug A as soon as he lays eyes on the purple monster with tentacles for a mouth – "Pull the lever!"

Though not quite as panicked, the boys inside the warehouse are just as freaked out at the eldritch tentacle monster – except for Steve of course, who decides that a life-size statue of an Eldritch Tentacle Monster is something he really wants in his life when he casts Petrify on the thing. Squidward though, he’s having none of it. He shakes off the spell and gives Steve the lazy eye as he silently contemplates what his brains must taste like. Steve’s brains, however – well aware of their status as a prime delicacy – quickly change tack and shift the flow of Magic around him toward something more conventional and again as reliable, though no less deadly, as a hail of icicles shoots out of his hand and hits his target square in the tentacle mouth. The effect is pretty decent, and certainly ought to have made Mr Purple reconsider the wisdom of his Monday stroll out the portal, though even through Mihai’s eyes I could tell Steve had put around twice as much power into that spell as the punch it actually delivered.

In the meantime, someone must have really pulled that lever because a bunch of gears start to grind somewhere, and a whole bunch of holes pop out above in the ceiling. So between the gas that starts pouring out and the very well-dressed abomination that just came to visit, something gets Mihai really pissed off as he goes into Kill Everything Mode and springs over to Kraken Head’s back before power-swinging his steel monster down on him. And I gotta hand it to Mihai, sometimes it takes a good solid hunk of metal to really bring down the pain when all the fancy spellwork falls short – and Broody Boy certainly is that. The blade cuts right through the fancy apparel, splashing silver blood all over the floor. But the moment I really seriously I know Brain-Squid’s gotta die is when I start hearing this mumble jumble in Mihai’s head – something too weird and twisted even for him – grumbling about how it wants to kill us all. Now don’t get me wrong, I’d want to kill someone who just tore me a crater too, but I don’t have tentacles for teeth.

Who also doesn’t have tentacles for teeth is Fluffle, who once again gathers his awesome Magical Power to blast the Mindfucker with his Fairy Fire. And I gotta tell you, it only gets more adorable the more he does it; the way it just bounces off the thing’s purple head is just precious beyond words, I can’t do it justice. Doesn’t do much in the way of damage though, there’s that.

But that’s ok, because before the thing has time to finally wrap its tentacles around Mihai’s head to suck out his brain cell, Konrad jumps into the fray! Drawing his trusty Sword of Life, he brings it down on Tentacle-mouth’s mouth, forever ruining its chances with the lady Squid-freaks – not because of the tendrils he cuts off on the way through its face so much as the way he splits its head almost clean in half, leaving it hanging by this itty bitty strip of flesh as the rest of it geysers silver blood all over the ceiling. Speaking of which, and not forgetting the gory scene that Amber is probably too young to watch right about now, the party sensibly decides that it’s time to bug out of the room before they all choke to death.

"We gotta get out."

So Mihai grabs Théo, Steve grabs Fluffle and Amber, Konrad grabs the corpse, and they all take a trip down Shroudy lane, being greeted as soon as they arrive by the sweet soft melodious mating call of Shrieker Bob. Our Valkrath friend, dying to have them all for lunch after the banger they pulled on the warehouse door last they were in here, can’t contain his excitement and stampedes over to them from his hangout just a few rooms over. What’s even better, said door just got magically fixed, to get them all nice and snug for our hungry fellow.

So while Konrad intrepidly scans the eldritch corpse, and learns many fascinating things about Squidward and all its brain-flaying friends back home – who happened to be all mind-connected to it, by the way, which this Dark Lord is certain will in no way whatsoever come back to bite them in the ass – Théo scans the structural integrity of the northern warehouse door by bashing hard on it with his shield, and learns many fascinating things about how much more punishment it can take before Shrieker Bob comes in for a snack. Mihai, however, eventually surmises that brooding at the thing isn’t making it break any faster and so decides to apply sword, which turns out to be super effective as the lock finally relents and breaks open, lest Broody Boy resume glaring. Instead, he kicks the rest of the door open then rolls through it, then springs to his feet on the other side and raises his sword toward the east corridor – "Move!" – as the more perceptive and likable members of the party start noticing a pretty grizzly scene happening all around them, with the real-world shadows of Griggs’ thugs seen struggling against a bunch of bony mooks that I’m certain I haven’t seen in the last two seconds, since I smashed one’s skull against a wall while Zelk takes a break.

Oh cry me a river, thugs! I just took down half a dozen of them since I started conserving my magic! No!? You’re just gonna get slaughtered!? Shit, Mihai, no wonder you were such a wimp before you came to Osprey.

The boys and young lady make a split-second decision that feels like an eternity and go through the door on the left before shifting back to the real world. The Bubble of Silence is still active, so they can’t really hear the thugs across the door getting slaughtered in front of them, only the screams and carnage coming from all the rest of the complex. It takes about two seconds for the happy campers to decide they really want in on this action, so they open the door and pounce on the poor undead mooks.

Konrad does a pretty un-Konrad thing and decides to bull-rush the mob of shamblers. He knocks one of them back, then Steve splashes some water on its face. It’s pretty heavy water, a few teeth are knocked off. Then Théo comes in and does Théo Charge, knocking the bony bastard off its feet and onto the ground. The ground doesn’t like it either, and the skeleton shatters into a pile of bones. Tragic. But funny.

Now the Skellywags, they all rush to give Amber & Pals a big kiss on the jugular but the hallway’s so crowded that they all trample and bump into each other – very embarrassing – but that’s when the best and brightest among them discover this legendary artifact called a door, a little ways to their left. They examine this “door”, and determine that – unlike the nefarious wall all around it – they may actually be able to walk through it, should they apply the ol’ grip and some elbow grease (don’t ask me how they do any of it without any actual muscles, this is just crazy day).

Meanwhile, back at the front of the line another skeleton tries to get back up but Théo stomps down with his boot and crushes its skull into tiny little pieces. Why this is a problem when the bonehead literally had no brain to begin with, I’ll never know, but it stays down, so who wants to argue.

Well, the Ghouls do (shut up Filarion, don’t come and tell me they’re called something else; these are fucking ghouls), one of them figures it wants a word with Théo for smashing its buddy’s brains. Very exciting, it tries to claw through his armor, but nobody’s really expecting it to figure out plate mail when they can barely open a door.

It might have figured it out eventually, sometime after its head flew right out of its body after this big monster blade of ice just sliced clean through it. Mihai doesn’t waste any time or momentum, he spins around and swings at the skeleton right next to it – and this is just me but I think he secretly gets a kick out of every time his sword just shatters a monster into icy chunks like that, which it does and then some.

Then Amber does her thing and summons my adorable girly partner in crime, Sunny Bunny of the Sunshine Element. Fluffle of course doesn’t want to be out-adorabled and does his little fire thingy from his finger, and I know I saw that skeleton fawn before the fireball hit it in the face. Now Sunny, she’s is a pretty handy swordsgirl in her own right, but instead she just smiles and bats her glowy eyes at the undead horde shambling down the corridor, and that’s it folks. The sheer radiance just strikes them and erases all their burdens and woes and everything binding them to this mortal coil. May they rest in peace, because the light show sure sent them out in style.

Except for one Ghoul, this screeching wretch that dares spurn Her Sunny Radiance, and instead just screams at her all impudent. I was starting to get pissed off that it was gonna hurt her feelings, but Steve steps in and slaps it in the face with a water splash. Very nice, Steve.

Then Konrad walks over and tries to chop it with his Sword of Life, which should have really been it right there and then, but neither of them see Théo moving in to sweep the leg and trip the walking corpse head first into the ground. He follows up with his signature Théo Stomp, but he’s really gotta start being careful when crushing the head of something with actual flesh inside. The aftermath isn’t pretty.

Regardless, that’s one horde down. Théo wins. Flawless Victory.

Except for the gore.

"What the fuck was that?"

“Well I dunno, but I just had to tear through a ton of them!”

“Yeah, I dunno.” – Broody boy gives Sunny Bunny a little side hug for saving their asses – “Good job.” – and she gives this cute little smile.

"Dead. Well now. I think it was an animated corpse," says Mr Theo, blowing my mind in the process as he tries to wipe the nasty blood off his boot on one of the dead gangsters until the Aspect of Sunshine points at something down the hall – “There.”
Yeah, all the annoying sounds of screaming and carnage have finally stopped throughout the complex – save for a couple noises down south – meaning certainly that everything should be just fine now.

Then the Doom Guys concentrate real hard on their hopes and dreams, and find that they can sense a few more portals scattered around the complex. Not a lot, just two or three. Maybe four, probably not five. No way more than six.

So with half a dozen portals spread throughout the place, with who knows what pouring out of them right there and then, the doom guys decide it’s nothing to worry about and bravely venture toward the office.

"Wait. We're not doing anything about this?" – pipes up the only sane member of this outfit. Sunny’s still standing like a cute life-sized lantern next to the swirling INTERDIMENSIONAL PORTAL, so they can’t say they don’t see it and the creepy dark catacombs it connects to.

“What do you want to do about it?"

“I want to make it into my retirement home, that shit’s got Evil Dark Lair written all over it!”

“I don’t know! Can't we close it with magic or something?"

"Let's find out." – Mihai tries to do one smart thing this week, walks over to the portal and strikes it with his sword. It passes right through it like nothing ever happened. Good plan, broody boy.

"It's not that I don't want to do anything about this it's just we should grab what we need in case we can't do anything about it and have to run away."

“Well, sword doesn’t work.”

Konrad tries weaving on the portal created by the massive cosmic entity that eats magic. It thanks him for the snack and keeps the maw open in case there’s more mana to chomp on. Takes a second, but both geniuses finally realize they can feel some kinda weird black-eye connection to the thing. Now I admit I’m a little jealous of their ability to just phase themselves out of any argument, but this Shroud thing just keeps getting creepier. So Konrad focuses his new creepy power on the portal, and you can it finally starts to shrink a bit.

"Oh! You're doing it!" – remarks Fluffle the Fairy, as a new delightful sound comes from the other side of the portal – that of some ghastly ghoul bastard that starts shambling toward them once it smells fresh meat.

"Okay, help me close this up before more come through!"

"Ugh..." – Mihai groans, and makes the portal shrink some more through the power of his brain cell. Then as Théo readies himself to give Mr Ghoul the smackdown once it crosses over, Steve finally realizes it’s not a prank and starts wishing really hard for the portal to close faster.

The portal finally starts to get the memo and begins to shrink into a circle, like that last puddle of water that runs out the drain. Except the water is coming out and it’s a hungry ghoul, that shoots out its arm at Konrad just as the portal closes in on it, and snip it goes before falling on the floor. To the next poor bastard that runs across that thing and has an easier time dealing with it now that it’s all gimped out, you’re welcome.

"EW!" Amber yawps, all grossed out, still aiming her crossbow at it like it might jump up and go all Evil Dead on her (which it actually might, so keep that sucker trained on it).

"Yeah..."

"I thought we had tried everything. Good call, Amber. "

"Uh, yeah. No problem." – she manages all the while still grimacing at the arm.

"...Where to now?"

"The office, like before. We'll close the other portals after."

So off they go, to visit the office and file a complaint about the pest problem. They find a lovely trap along the way, then find their path blocked by this nice mahogany door that really ties the hallway together. They clear this obstacle by turning the knob.

Office looks much the same as the few times Mihai’s visited, down to the old tic tac of the metronome swinging on the desk. Except maybe for all the sheets of paper scattered about, like someone suddenly felt the urge to run like a bitch, though the door to Malik’s quarters was closed.

“Cozy.”

“Hmpf…”

The thing they were looking for was probably inside that safe, though that wasn’t going anywhere too far anytime soon. Mihai went checking for traps all the way to the door, but figured he could stop when it opened into this pretty lavish bedroom with a big plush bed against the wall, table, a few chairs, wardrobe that ought to be worth more than your whole year’s salary and – check it out – this big hot tub, way too luxurious for just a quick shower by your lonesome after a day’s work. Well shit Mihai, I guess betraying your own kiddy staff to get tortured with hot irons does have its upside, huh.

I guess someone had been enjoying it recently, though if the kinda faint noise from beyond the door to the right was any indication, the fun had been cut short.

Théo is pretty quick to notice the scratches on the floor next to the east wall, and points it out in short order. But it’s when Steve realizes the sound they’re hearing is actually crying, it puts Mihai on simp mode right there and then – especially when he remembers the last time he heard whimpering from a woman in Griggs’ proximity.

So needless to say, he heads right in to find a – seriously, how many luxury bathrooms does Malik freaking need? Anyway, the room is plunged in my favorite element but the ceiling chandelier still casts enough Sunny to reveal… no, I can’t. Will someone please go and kick Mihai’s ass? Does he have some hidden passive that alters probability to make hot women pop around every corner, behind every door, under every nook and cranny he happens to search?

Anyhow, two sweet young things – wearing nothing but a couple towels wrapped around – are all huddled in a corner, crying with their eyes closed. Like the kind of crying where you know your whole world is about to be shattered and all you can do is just wail and lament in those precious few second before some rough pair of hands or a piece of steel touches your skin and brings down the horror. And I scoff, but that was a real possibility after hearing all that screaming and screeching and general slaughter, probably more than that door opening to reveal Broody Boy and his squad of do-gooders who wouldn’t harm a hair on their heads.

"Won't hurt you. Where's Griggs?"

Though Mihai really needs to work on his tone when addressing helpless naked dames, because his relief at seeing them unharmed didn’t carry so much as his BEHOLD MY BROODING vibe.

"P-Please, we'll tell you everything. Just don't hurt us."

The young lady hesitates to look up at him through her wet hair, and this is it – this is where my man can finally learn to be all comforting and approachable and just gentlemanly comfort the two beauties and reassure them that everything will be alright.

"Won't hurt you. Where's Griggs?"

“For fuck’s sake, Mihai.”

Anyway, the girl hesitates but then raises her hand and points toward the left side door – "In-in the panic room."

"Get dressed and don't wander off. There could still be things roaming about." – and he wanders off.

Konrad though, being the master of detection that he is, detects that before they arrived, some dipshit was frolicking in the bathtub with the two sweet things the next room over. Then the undead massacre starts echoing throughout the hideout, the girls get scared and go – “Oh Griggs, you’re so big and manly and reliable, and you’d never ever just get up and walk off and leave us behind like some stupid nincompoop and shut yourself alone in your panic room!” – trust me ladies, he’s done far worse than that.

Now, I’m not one to question the wisdom of a man who puts such a turdbrain in charge of his main office while his highly capable sister is left out to pasture at home, but engineering a panic room that can be opened form the outside as simply as by pulling a vaguely hidden lever that a Level One Scan will reveal doesn’t fill me with ultra-confidence in his ability as the leader of the ruling power in the Villevielle underworld. Not that I’m complaining – nor do the boys, when Konrad makes ready to open the iron door as everyone’s favorite teenage girl frowns and readies her crossbow. "I can't wait to say hi to him."

So Mihai takes point, because there’s no way he’ll let anyone else take the lead on this particular engagement, while Amber, Théo and The Fluff hold the entrance. Konrad pulls the lever, iron door opens, off they go.

Konrad and Steve take position right behind Mihai as Sunny the Sunshine brings up the rear and they make their way into the panic room – and soon they discover what Malik may have been thinking when he made access so easy. The path branches into two hallways that twist around a central space, which is where the bastard had probably holed up. Once again, Mihai resigns himself to – all together now – check for traps every inch of the way around the actual panic room as this really dipshit voice starts ringing out into the corridor.

"I knew it was you. Looks like you found yourself thugs of your own as well."

It’s Mr Griggs! Mihai is so overwhelmed at their reunion, he almost doesn’t notice a pressure plate on the floor a few steps ahead of them, just ahead of the turn.

"The funny thing is, i wasn't even here for you. If you'd just been smart enough to let it go, this wouldn't have had to be the last day of your life. But then again, all you've ever known how to do is look good and fail upwards. Shit, you might've even gotten away with unleashing a monster plague on the city today, if we hadn't been here." – then he gets all edgy and menacing about it – “But I am here.”

Meanwhile, Steve finds a hidden hole in the wall – “Guys, there's a hidden hole here on this wall.”

"These pitiful creatures are too pitiful to be called ‘monsters’," – Griggs replies, really enjoying saying the word ‘pitiful’ – "What, did your assault allow them to escape? Then the fault is on you. Everything was fine until you came back. And what about your ‘friends’? Did you pay them? Or did you lie to them about who you are?"

“If you paid them, I want my money.”

"By all means, Retard, let them know." – he quips back and skips on over the plate. – “Fool!”

And that’s when it happens, everything unravels and the ceiling opens up to reveal the master plan of Gregory Morin, against which Mihai stood no more chance than a broody termite on a hot day: a deadfall box stuffed full of maces.

Mihai looks up as the deadly container descends upon him in all its cold deadly fury, irresistibly pulled down by the power of the very planet itself at 9.8 meters per second per second, hurling the crushing mass of assorted melee implements down on Mihai’s solitary brain cell. Unseen, Griggs’ visage contorts into a hideous grin as he wills – WILLS – the deadly crate down onto the hapless rogue, savoring the moment that his ire will finally STRIKE down onto his most hated foil and PURGE his syndicate of his loathsome existence once and for all!

Mihai jumps past, and the box smashes onto the ground. – "If that's what you were relying on, i've got bad news.”

He rounds the corner and finds the door. Then Konrad steps right in front of the hole and gets a crossbow bolt through the shoulder for his trouble, very sad. Griggs reloads the trap, which isn’t the best use of his time since no one else is actually gonna fall for that shit again.

“He knows he’s outmatched. Don’t let him make a break for it.”

Meantime, Mihai reaches the door and gets to work on it – "Got any more of those? I'm begging you now, don't make this boring for me."

The funny thing is, even though he said it like a taunt, he actually meant it. Up until that crossbow shot, Griggs had still had the ability to make Mihai spare him – something the more observant of his enemies had been able to use against him in the past. Mr Griggs however, he really wasn’t one of them. So when he hears the lock being picked, he figures this is the perfect time to make a bolt for it and dashes out the hidden front door of the room, all convinced that he’s given his hated enemy the slip. And then he runs right into Amber with her crossbow at the ready. She lets fly, everyone hears the scream.

Now I’d say I’m a little pissed at Mihai for letting the situation get to a point where Amber had to go and actually shoot the guy, but I know he’s pissed at himself enough already. So back they go to the entrance, Mihai finds Griggs on the ground with a bolt sticking out of his chest, Amber standing over him looking grim, already reloading her crossbow.

"W-wait!" – the asshole manages – "D-Don't kill me... Deal..."

Now he was definitely on the right track here, and he still might have eked out a stay of execution because Mihai takes the bait and drops to a knee to look him in the eye.

"What could you possibly have to offer that i want? And keep in mind that you don't have long."

"W-what you want...?" – he starts to wheeze – "Tell me..."

What Mihai wanted, you imbecile, you’ll never understand. Now, nevermind that Mihai had never killed anyone in cold blood and had indeed hoped he’d never have to. Despite how pathetic Griggs looked at this moment, this man wanting to strike a deal with you was no joke. Bleeding like a stuck pig aside, he was still currently the most powerful man in Villevielle, his bargaining power was enormous, especially when all he wanted to buy was more sand for his hourglass. Problem was, even now as he grit his teeth together, Mihai wasn’t selling any.

So Mihai gets up, draws Waterglass, off with his head.

And then he stands there, brooding at his enemy’s headless corpse as if there was anything else to do about it. His whole history with this sick degenerate flashed through his mind, all full of what-ifs and whys, and the occasional spike of anger. He knew perfectly well that V had been right: there was now one less monster in the world, sure as if it’d been Snicker or Shitbird. A lot of people would probably thank him, spared from some horrible end at Griggs’ hands down the line. He’d done what he had to. Yeah.

"Hmph. Asshole."

"Now, there was a ledger that we needed to find, yes?" – yes Konrad, there sure was. You go on and search the dead man for it, don’t pay no mind to the fancy-looking key that you get off of him and especially the Bag of Totally Not Holding, don’t you go doing the spellcraft thing on it now because there’s nothing to see here.

"Ah, neat, we've got another magical bag of holding."

"How much is in it?"

Amber, sweetie-pie, I like your sense of adventure and your tomboy spunk and your cute-as-a-button Aspect of Sunlight, but you scare me sometimes with how quickly you zone in on the scent of money. If Kieran shortchanged you back in Luxus, you let me know and I’ll give him a piece of my mind.

"Open it"

So Konrad reaches in and starts pulling stuff out: some pocket change, a bag of Rev (burn that shit, we’ve got kids in the house), a pipe with some tobacco (DIBS!!), a keyring, rations, candles (wtf?), and just as I’m thinking he’ll finally pull out a giant hammer, two wicked-looking longswords come out instead.

Now when I say wicked, these things look like a match for Mihai’s Permafrost Ire Iron of Doom. The scabbards are all woven with power containment runes like the ones on Waterglass’s, both looking straight and long enough to fit the Medial-Osprey model but with the crossguards having been swapped out for reinforced knuckle bows – straight and solid instead of the flowing curved Emerald design, one black and one blue-white, both having pretty clearly seen action but still real well maintained, and both encasing some kind of magnetite Rune Cores where the tang meets the blade. Just like Mihai’s sword, the hilts are braid-wrapped in leather strips, fastened tight all the way to the pommel.

Amber’s eyes go wide as soon as she sees them, drops her weapon and snatches them right out of Konrad’s hands faster than it takes for the crossbow to hit the ground (wait a minute, WASN’T THAT THING LOADED!?).

"Hey, excuse me?"

Mihai steps in for his cute sister – "They’re hers."

The matchless twin blades of annihilation currently very happy at their reunion with their master, Amber can only nod as she holds them tight against her chest.

"Heirloom? Inheritance?"

The bonny lass stifles a sob and nods again. Mihai decides that’s enough questions and offers some trivia by way of compensation – "I named this one after them." – referring to the monster at his back, then moves over to commiserate with sobbing sis, as does Steve, then Fluffle.

Théo picks up the crossbow to make sure it wasn’t damaged by the drop while the moral support squad do their thing, until Amber finally begins to relax – "Thanks… I’m sorry. Just gimme a minute." – adorably wiping away the tears as she holds the swords closer, but is finally snapped out of it when Konrad lights up and burns the candy into a smoking black mark on the floor.

"…what was that for?"

"I thought it might be drugged, and that set me off."

"We’ve got a ledger to find." – finally mutters the broody boy, setting them back on track at long last.

Back at Malik’s office – and having forgotten all about the naked girls in the bathroom, lest they prove a bad influence for Amber – the metronome keeps on ticking away as the boys take a good look at the safe. The thing shockingly has a keyhole, but what gets the gang’s attention is the little demi-sphere off to the right side, not much different from the motion detectors they’ve been avoiding all the way since they got here – BUT WAIT! Right above it, all neatly engraved in really tidy emeraldics, the words that would have Mihai making a fool of himself for the next few minutes.

I'm difficult for you to hear.

Say my name and I disappear.

"Well, it sure as shit ain’t me."

"Silence."

Konrad takes his new fancy key out of the bag and tries to fit it in the keyhole, and what do you know! Good thing they killed Griggs first, or this would have taken forever.

"Silence."

Or this could take forever, because the safe could care less what they say. That’s when the radiant Sunny Bunny points out it might be worth their time to look closer at the pretty ball on the safe’s door, which Konrad does, with his Magic Tingle thingy that mages do. The thing is a Magic detector, like the ones they found before but way more precise.

Now I’m gonna spare you a whole lot of back and forth, the short version is the boys keep trying to get the thing open while trying to be actually silent instead of saying the word like a bunch of idiots. I thought it’d work when at long last they thought to stop the metronome but no cigar, until Fluffy Fluffle points out that they’re breathing too loud. So Mihai deprives his brain cell of oxygen just long enough for them to turn they key real quiet. It clicks open, finally, group hug.

They find a bunch of money, a lot of files, and a little notebook with a lot of names written on it but nothing on the cover. Nobody thinks to scan it for a death curse because it really looks like they finally found their damn ledger, so they go and stuff the naked chicks in the panic room before moving out and on with their lives, though not before they detect a crazy amount of movement in the southeast corner of the complex – I’m talking so much that it overwhelms the sensor. Gee guys, who’d a thunk it might not be a good idea to leave those portals unchecked, huh?

So they finally decide to get on that, and their first stop is the gas chamber they warped out of after taking out squidward. Stepping over all the corpses, Steve finds a nice key on one of the dead thugs that looks like it might open a few doors around here, Konrad pulls a lever that makes some stone grind inside the prison cell, then Mihai gets to work picking the lock for the warehouse door, which he does unlock quite deftly – an admirable feat for him and his brain cell until they both realize Steve had the key for it all along.

"…………………."

And if right now you’re thinking that pretty embarrassing, don’t you worry. It gets better!

For now, though, our heroes and the idiot step back into the prison cell to be greeted by the nauseating stench of burnt goblin and poison gas – what’s left of it, anyway. They see no portal until they walk a little further in and finally see what it looks like from the other side, which my retelling doesn’t even come close to doing justice – the thing is literally invisible until you look at it from the right angle, it blows my mind.

So Konrad concentrates, Steve focuses and Mihai broods at it really hard until the portal’s had enough and decides to peace out, taking all the exciting promise of high adventure exploring the catacombs of another world with it to the void.

"Next."

Another portal down, the boys take the scenic route down to the training room, until they’re stopped in their tracks by this uncouth, impudent closed door. Steve thinks Mihai should kick the door down for the aggravation, I think Mihai should kick the door down for the fun of it – and the aggravation, but Mihai is such a pussy that he won’t stand up to the door like a man and instead just uses the doorknob all polite-like. After a second just to let him know who’s boss, the door opens up all smug and allows him the courtesy of stepping foot into the room beyond. There’s honestly not that much in it to write home about, so the happy campers move along to the armory.

Once again, this stupid door stands in our way all puffed up like it owns the place. What’s more, there’s this weird chittering coming from the other side, and by the time we hear something fall to the ground we’re sure something foul is afoot. And speaking of foot, me and Steve can’t stand it anymore and demand Mihai do the man thing already and put his through the impertinent slammer!

"Kick it! Kick it! Kick it!"

So broody boy lifts his foot high and slams it against the doorway! I don’t know what got into his head, everyone is all shocked and aghast at this sudden display of violence – except for the door, which is locked tight and barely even notices anything happened.

"…………..."

"That’s so uncool."

So all flustered and humiliated by a piece of wood, he once again resorts to being a pansy, takes out his little sissy tools and goes to work picking the lock. And I guess the door finally feels so sorry for him that it unlocks out of pity, right before he realizes that it was the same lock he’d already been carrying the key for all the way since the gas chamber.

"………………………………."

So Silly Broody and the Doom Guys finally traverse the dreaded portcullis into the armory, but what they find inside would make every single door Mihai’s ever faced in his whole life look like marshmallow bunnies and fluffy rainbows.

Now, once the Doom Party enters the room, they immediately find this will be a tough audience, as the giant red cockroaches don’t really pay them much mind at all, much preferring the sweet taste of metal on the weapon racks. Some dead assholes litter the floor, their bodies riddled with holes right about the size of those antennae – which kinda explains Mihai’s penchant to keep trying to fix Amber’s hair as the picture starts to paint itself as to what must’ve happened around here.

And of course, all together now, round of applause for our good friend Mr Portal standing right in the middle of the room! Beyond Gate Number 3 lies a fabulous nondescript dark underground, exactly as creepy as the previous two before it! Could this one be leading to the exact same world? As the party contemplates this and other fascinating questions, yet another Giant Red Roach saunters through it and joins its buddies at the buffet. I am sure they’re all having a ball of it right now and will indeed tell all their friends to come over and enjoy Dust’s all-you-can-eat hospitality, which would undoubtedly delight the party to no end, thereby it being with the deepest sorrow and greatest regret that arrive at the hard decision of closing that fucker right now before they’re faced with the mother of all infestations right here in the birthplace of the Lofellian Fry.

And so does the party combine their powers and begin shutting this party down, which would have been a nice peaceful change of pace from the all-out carnage this day had so abundantly provided. None would seem to have any objection to just non-confrontationally cutting off the inflow of roaches, except for the Roaches, who suddenly cease their happy meal and turn their antennae toward the three stooges. Queue the fight song, carnage it is!

Konrad steps up and boldly asks Amber if she knows how to use those swords.

"Nope!" – the teenage wonder boldly proclaims, as the sight of the encroaching insects makes her wish she could be anywhere else right now.

Big man Theo moves up and whacks one of them – or tries to, as his flail gets caught on one of the weapon racks and goes wide on the downswing. Whether or not that’s a good thing is debatable, but the roach doesn’t think so as it moves to bite him out of spite – or tries to, as it’s a stupid giant bug and can’t hit a big man clad in yummy metal standing right in front of it. Two of its friends decide this turn of events is outrageous and move in to make good on their aggression with their antennae, but they’re also just as incompetent as their buddy and just barely miss him, their affections going wide and onto one of the swords on the nearby weapon racks instead. The metal weapon corrodes into rust and crumbles in a matter of seconds, filling everyone with warm fuzzy feelings about letting the giant bugs touch any of their gear.

Konrad feels especially strongly about this as two more close in on him for a snack, but the Red Mage man gets just as lucky as Théo before him and manages to get out of the way as the insectoid pair miss like a couple bitches. BUT THEN, yet another bug boldly steps out of the portal and eyes Mihai and his yummy Karst & Dessler Narshe SL Core Mk III, and decides there and then that he will be the one to succeed where his brethren have failed, and he WILL have a taste of Lorinth’s finest engineering and weaving as he whips forth his antennae to STRIKE TRUE and – you know where this is going, don’t you. The bug misses like a bitch, just like the rest of its broodmates. And this is just me, but I like to think that somewhere out in the heart of Verstohl, ol’ Arno Dessler was breathing a sigh of relief.

But back to here and now, my man Steve figures he’ll show the bugs what grace under pressure is all about as the Rust Roaches take him for an easy target to swarm. Citadevil takes step back as he concentrates and summons up a big fireball in his hand, and just as one of the pests is about to sink its mandibles into him, the blaze explodes into a fire spread that peppers everything in in front of him. The bugs screech, get shredded and incinerated in a textbook example of why you should always kill it with fire.

Taking the momentum, Mihai, eager to reclaim his pride after his disgraceful encounter with the Doors, decides to risk it big and spring himself into range of the two remaining monsters in the hope of taking both down before this is over. He moves all nimble, avoiding their jaws and feelers and whatnot, gets into position, raises his sword and cuts right through the carapace of one of them. The bug wriggles and screeches, thick gooey red blood pours out all disgusting and the thing almost dies. Mihai’s gambit almost works and he realizes he’s soon to be almost not dead, as the second bug jumps right at him while Waterglass is still stuck inside that carapace with smoke pouring out of it.

Bug fucker springs right at Broody Boy, jaws snapping right at his head as it almost takes out a chunk of his face before yet another fireball crashes into it in the nick of time. Konrad’s arm whips back as the rest of the volley flies at the other roaches, burning them all in the most sickening barbecue I’ve ever watched since that time Nick burned the mystery meat.

Despite the burning smoke starting to fill the room and the fire starting to spread to a nearby table, Amber and Fluffle can’t help but take a sigh to relief as all the giant killer roaches from another world are finally put do—NOPE!

"Guys, I hear something!"

Though late to the party, The Final Roach skitters out of the portal and beelines straight toward Théo! Big Man is ready however and brings his flail down on its final ass, which gets tangled on the portal’s wash and once again totally misses the mark on the downswing. Final Roach doesn’t waste a second, whips its antennae at Théo full of thunder and fury and misses like a bitch!

That’s when, over the sound of all the senseless violence taking place, the chittering from beyond the portal starts to really kick up, and the boys know they need to close that fucker right now or all the incompetence in the world isn’t gonna save them from the sheer numbers.

Théo makes ready to take on the Final Roach by his heroic lonesome while SMK focus their creepy Shroud power to abracadabra that gate shut before we’re swarmed by the Killer Roaches from Outer Space.

The Big Man from Seuilsalé winds up his flail again, swinging down and inward this time. The magic weapon strikes true at last, drawing more of that corrosive blood that starts to warp it almost immediately. The Final Roach screeches all angry and lashes its antennae at Théo and – all together now – MISSES LIKE A BITCH!

Meantime, the boys keep working the portal but the bugs just keep chittering closer and closer. My homegirl Amber gets so freaked out, she summons Sunny Bunny to give them all a very stern talking to. Pillar of light erupts right in front of the portal, coalesces into the cutest Aspect in all of Lofell, who screams in terror at the sight of over a dozen bugs swarming right toward her.

"KYAAAAH!"

I guess they don’t teach you to never scare an Aspect over in bug land, or they’d know a little something about our muscle memory. When someone’s fight or flight instinct is just plain missing the flight part, what happens to you when you get a jump scare is… well, let’s just say the blinding flash of light Sunny blasts them all with out of sheer reflex is the very most merciful thing she could have done – and that’s why we love her.

The bugs’ fight or flight clearly doesn’t work the same way as they all scatter and flee, right before the boys manage to finally close the portal all the way.

Well, that was fun! Except for Sunny, who’s all pouting after being woken up like that – she’s right, by the way. You don’t do that to an Aspect, could give her nightmares for the next month.

"Thanks, Amber!"

"MMmmm…!!"

Amber smiles and nods at Steve, catching her own breath while hugging a distressed Sunny.

"What the FUCK were those things?"

"They warped my blade."

"Mute Boy can fix’er right up, don’t you sweat it."

Konrad switches rings and does the Konrad Maneuver, casting a big hefty Scan on one of them corpses.

So guess what, turns out the Rust Roaches hunt for rust! Most of the time they’re loners but when they sensed the metal in the armory, boy oh boy, chow time. Until, of course, the Doom Guys decided to cut off the portal back home and so they politely attempted to murder the shit out of them – which I totally understand, but I have a better hit ratio than zero. Just be glad you didn’t get any Brainsuckers along for the ride, because that was the same place the last one came out from.

"That must be why they damaged our weapons, Mihai." – remarks the good Mr Dufort, visibly restraining himself from whacking the dead monsters again a few times.

The Doom Guys finally decide they’ve had enough of this armory and get a move on toward the eastern part of the complex, all of them wondering how this day could get any worse (oh, don’t you worry), with Sunny feeling pretty bummed out. That’s when Amber raises a hand.

"Hold up."

She then takes out her Bag of Holding (the one that’s stuffed full of money), reaches in and pulls out the twin longswords from earlier. Sunny’s eyes go wide, her weapons drop to the ground as she covers her mouth in shock at the sight of Umbraglint and Thunderglint.

It’s hard to tell when an Aspect is crying, a lot of us don’t even develop enough to form a personality that’s not a carbon copy of our Human. It varies from element to element, but the big telltale, roughly speaking – absent the scrunched face, of course – is when the element particles spouting from our eyes don’t dissolve right away and keep pulsating as they float up.

Once she shock dissolves, Sunny’s hands finally inch forward, hesitate a little just before touching the pommels. Then she plucks up her resolve, sniffles her game face back on, and in one swift move pulls them both out of their sheaths, twirls them in the air like she’s done it a hundred times before and swings them down to her sides.

Now that they’re uncovered, the left hand blade is pitch black, with the odd black spark arcing across its length now and then, emitting a very faint low rumble if you listen close enough. The right hand blade looks more like a blue flash of light, blue-white sparks also flickering along its length, with a faint low hum reverberating off of it. Outside the suppressive effect of their sheaths, the rune cores light up with elemental magic pulsing into them and out through the lines carved along the magnetite and into the blades, with the Darkness enveloping this tiny bright flicker at its center for the left-hand weapon, and the air coalescing into tiny purple lightning that turns blue as it sparks through the runes for the right hand.

Sunny gives them one last overwhelmed gaze before twirling the left hand sword into a reverse grip and staring determinedly straight ahead.

"G-game on, bitches!"

She steps forward, full of purpose, ahead of everyone and makes for the barracks. It’s insanely cute, kinda badass and downright adorable.

Then Sunny hears bleating coming the other side of the door. Steve and Mihai hear a lot of bleating from the other side of the door. Konrad and Théo recognize the bleating sound as bleating, coming from the other side of the door. Lots of bleating, probably from a whole bleating swarm, bleating right outside the door.

Our hero Sunny Bunny steels herself for whatever horrid goatling menace lie on the other side of that doorway and starts to boldly step forward until she feels a hand on her shoulder.

"Why don’t you let me take point on this one, boss."

"Um… – she hesitates for a second – O-okay…"

"There's sheep in there. Sheep?" – pipes up Konrad as Broody Boy steps forward. As he approaches the door, the sound of chirping birds starts to weird him out a little as well. He blinks a few times, then opens the door.

What he finds past the doorway, across the room, is a portal leading to the last place he ever expected to come across today: a sunny freaking meadow.

Now I don’t mean just some patch of fluffy grass. I’m talking leafy trees with sunlight filtering through, butterflies fluttering about above the dandelions, with little sparrows hopping between the sheep. Oh yeah, the sheep!

Did I mention the sheep? There’s sheep grazing all over, without a care in the world. And I do mean all over, they just came right through the portal and made themselves at home in the barracks, rummaging around, lying on the bunks, eating the pillows.

Meet your new recruits, Virginie! I wouldn’t trust them with a crossbow, but point them in the right direction and they can probably ram pretty good.

Konrad puts on the grin right away – "Would anyone like to walk through this one instead?"

"No, I’m good."

"Any other day…"

"They’re not monster sheep, are they?"

Entering the room as she hears ‘monster sheep’, Sunny almost raises her legendary weapons again, but the sight in front of her knocks all the fight out of her system in the time it takes for her jaw to drop. The moment a curious wooly menace walks her way and begins to sniff her, that’s when she starts to fidget. And once Amber takes hold of the swords for her, that’s when the restraint melts away and she surrenders to petting the lazy beast as the big smile starts to creep across her face.

Likewise to Broody Boy, dealing with his own large mammal approaching for a meeting of the minds. The moment Mihai takes the tough guy act down a notch, the sheep takes it as a sign of weakness and starts nibbling on his shirt.

"Uh, easy there."

He tries to push it back, but no sir. It’s my shirt now, Human.

Konrad shakes his head and goes – "They aren't magical in any way. Let's close the portal behind them. There's a dozen things the Islands need more of, and sheep can supply at least two of them." – but before he can commandeer the beasts for the war effort, the Doom Guys notice movement on the other side of the portal. It’s a human woman – scratch that, it’s a gorgeous human woman, despite the plate armor covering her from head to toe. And she’s peering into the portal. – “Oh, there’s someone here now!”

"Hot damn, Dark Lord is in love!"

Posts : 3812 Join date : 2017-05-16

Mihai raises a hand in greeting instead of kneeling before the armored nymph, and proceeds to speak to her in the most impudent casual tone – "Careful, ma’am. The edges of this portal could cut you in half."

"You don’t know that!"

"You wanna risk it?"

The impudent whelp continues his parley with the fair maiden.

"Where are you over there?"

"Fallcrest. How about you?"

"Uh, Villevielle. Name’s Mihai."

"And I’m Smirk! Ask her if she comes here often!"

"What?"

I have no time to admonish the fool for his boorishness, as Konrad gets it in his head to start stifling the portal and cut me off from my armored muse for all time. But my loyal wooly minions soon start to congregate around him and block – nay – IMPEDE his progress toward the portal! Hold fast, my friends, your sacrifice shall not be forgotten!

"Hi, Mihai! Sorry to spring this on you, but could you help us move the sheep back to this side of the portal? The shepherd thinks it's our fault this portal appeared and he won't stop pestering us about it."

"Darling, I’d go fetch you the moon if you asked for it, and bring a star along for every second I’m deprived of your sweet face."

"Are you serious right now?"

"YOU DARE GAINSAY MY GODDESS!?"

The contemptible broodster ignores my chiding and starts nudging my minions instead!

"Oh, we better help then!" – Don’t you dare, wonder boy!

"You're... pretty unfazed. This portal thing happen often around there?"

"Kind of. I was in the Feywild a while ago. I've never heard of Villevieille before though."

Though Stevie the Wonder gives it the good ol’ college try, my horned wooly troopers stand their ground as bravely as they are lazy. Until eventually his and Broody Boy’s nagging becomes too much, and the more half-hearted ones start to give in and stroll toward the portal. And that’s when – despite the blatant defiance of these two boors – something amazing happens.

"Oh, thank you! I'm Kat, by the way." – the goddess graces us with her name, as her smile makes rays of golden sunlight shine down on the corridor I’m on as the half dozen skeletons that popped up crumble to dust under its smiting radiance (or maybe that was Zelk).

My loyal minions however begin to break ranks more and more, as Broody and Wonder start to get the basics of sheepherding 101. Many stand proud, defiantly lazing about their beds even as Konrad joins in their deportation, hapless though his efforts be as he futilely orders them to move.

But then… THEN is when the definitely strangest – though oddly badass – creature of this whole afternoon finally makes his entrance!

"Quel es la demora, oi!”

"So... Zelky? Mihai and pals are moving sheep through a portal to another world. I am not - repeat, NOT - making this up. A nymph in armor and a stocky dude with a hammer as big as him just came from the other side and said hi.”

Zelk sighs – "You better not be fooling around, Smirk.”

"You wanna put money down on it, that's fine by me.”

Now if you thought Elves looked funny, you gotta check this one out. It’s like a pint-sized Wahrmann Feral with the most epic beard I’ve ever seen, decked out in plate armor thick enough to make Théo blush and carrying this monster of a stone hammer about as big as him. Is this what shepherds look like on this planet? Because I wanna live here!

"Oh, Carlos! These nice people said they were going to help us.”

Oh we sure are, Carlos! Wanna stay for dinner? You and Kat – especially Kat. What do you eat, Kat? My Human makes a mean mashed potatoes and gravy, you gotta try it! Don’t worry about the portal, I’m sure we can open it back up some day. Probably. Maybe. Who cares.

"Oooh, ain't that nice. They don' really seem ta know what they doin' though.”

"I've never even seen a sheep before!”

"Yeah, nope. No clue at all.”

" See Kat, that’s what I’m saying! This is gonna take a while, why don’t you put your feet up, make yourself comfy…”

"……………..”

"I CAN HEAR YOUR BROODING, LOVERBOY!”

Stevie Steve pokes one of the fluffies with his staff while Mihai keeps trying to nudge another one of my minions through.

"They don't. And while you seem like lovely company, they have things to do and other places to be. I'm Konrad, by the way.”

Konrad starts to get all irritated with the sheep. Goes up to one lying on a bed and grabs it by the wool. I decide that one’s my favorite then and there, when it doesn’t even flinch or move a muscle, just lets itself get carried deadweight by Red Mage Man. Any chance I can keep that one as a pet? I get the feeling we’ve got a lot in common.

Another handful of them start moving towards the portal, since Stevie and Broody just have to be all industrious about this. I am torn between seeing beautiful Kat smile in approval of my hard work and knowing it draws my time with her in this world ever closer to a close.

That’s when Wahrmann Feral finally notices The Fluff trying to talk a sheep down from eating a pillow - "Oi! S'a lil sprite over there, no?”

Hear that Fluffle, you’re a little Sprite now.

"Hello. I'm Fluffle.” – he replies, all shy-like as negotiations break down with the pillow-hungry sheep. If they kidnap you for novelty’s sake, I’m taking Tall White and Gorgeous as collateral.

I’m not sure how committed Steve is to this sheep-portal business but he sure seems to be having fun with the one sniffing his robe, bleating at him. Meanwhile, Konrad figures carrying the sheep is an acceptable tactic after all and decides to roll with it.

With my minions almost down to a dozen, my heart grows heavy at the thought of parting with my lady. All the worse when Théo takes Steve’s staff and summons up his childhood farming expertise, but Mihai decides to take pity on me and throws some scuttlebutt into the works to buy me time. – "While we’re at it…”

"Say something long-winded!”

"...you got any Magic to remove magical Orbs out of people's heads? ”

"Ta do the what now?”

"Yeah, that doesn't ring any bell to me.”

"Every time I hear your voice, it rings a bell in me!”

Mihai does the broody sigh – "…worth a shot.”

Stalwart though my minions are, Théo gets it in his head to start being all efficient and shit. The sheep begin moving through the portal in this orderly fashion that really starts to piss me off. Then Konrad has the most genius idea anyone’s had all afternoon – "Listen, I'm trying my best, but there must some fifty of the creatures. Could you give us a hand and speed this up?”

"Hmm, the portal won't close on me, right?”

"Ooohoho, silly Kitty Kat, of course not!”

"Hmm, seems to be stable for now.”

Konrad Shrugs – "It shouldn't. They've only been closing when we will them to. It's something new that we've... 'learned' to do.”

"You can open portals?! That's im--” – my lady stops cold all of a sudden when she notices the princess of cute, Sunny Sunshine happily petting her sheep in a scene that’s nothing short of painting-worthy (nudge nudge wink wink, Amber) – "Wow..”

"Open them? Maybe with enough time. No, someone else opened them. The sheep are the first benign things to have come through them.”

"You could be the second!!”

Meanwhile, the minion that Steve has been poking starts to nibble on his robe.

"Hey, that's mine!”

And he sort of takes exception to that, blasts the wooly bugger with his water cantrip like a portable geyser! And what do you know, that actually does the trick. Sheep bleats all agitated and runs away through the portal.

And that… is when the most wicked grin starts forming across his face.

Wonder Boy steps a little to the right as he spots the next sheep, making sure to place himself so his victim is directly between him and the portal. My minion doesn’t seem the least bit concerned with Steve’s presence or the devious glint in his eye as he runs some numbers in his head, this is all just a normal Tuesday afternoon of lazing about the barracks until its face gets splashed with a magical water blast. Oh NOW you’re running!

Wonder Boy goes wild, doing as a spellslinger does when there's no MP to worry about and everything on four legs is fair game, blasting cantrip with more wild abandon than Billy playing tag with a hungry Gator. Not all of them get in a huff about a little splashing, but enough of them that you can see where this is going pretty fast, with a bunch of them going bleat bleat bleat, running around the room before escaping through the portal back to the meadow.

"Well, I guess it doesn’t cut you in half after all, huh?”

"Guess not.”

While the interstellar woolies flee from the Unbleatable Steve’s watery wrath, this cantankerous-sounding dude starts… sounding off, from somewhere in the direction of the other planet – "My sheep! My sheep are returning! Where were you, my beauties? And you! How are you going to pay me back for all the suffering you've inflicted on my flock? I know your type. You're responsible for this, somehow!”

“You know, that’s a good question. How are you gonna pay him back? Does gold work in Fallcrest, or do they use that paper money shit the Moneymakers were thinking of introducing a while back? Do they have gold? Do they call it gold? Maybe their gold is red instead of gold, and they call it Red? Yes sir, a room for the night will be five Red, please!”

“There’s some red for you.”

And then the shepherd comes into view and I see him argue with this… red guy. With a tail. And horns.

“OH NO PLEASE SIR DON’T COME TAKE MY SOUL!! I ONLY TOOK 3 SILVER FROM NICK WHEN HE WAS A KID AND THAT DOESN’T COUNT BECAUSE HE CAN’T TALK ABOUT IT!”

“Maybe if I keep looking at him, he’ll see you through me.”

“Look away! LOOK AWAY!!”

Konrad moves back toward the door, draws his sword and starts yelling at the sheep, all ha and ya and git while striking it on the ground (you could have just used the scabbard, you know). A lot of them respond to this by running off toward the meadow, including the one Sunny was petting, almost headbutting her in the process and coming just as close to making her cry. Sorry Sunny Bunny, but you knew you weren’t gonna keep it.

Between the three of them – and Mihai – a good chunk of my minions are eventually scared off-planet and back to their own corner of the galaxy, though the ones on the bed keep on acting like they own the place – and I’m so proud of them for it.

“So you got goblins too in your world?”

"Aye, them buggers get up ta no good now an' then. Gotta give'em a good smashin' and leave the guts as a warnin ta their pals!”

"They ever open portals?”

Meanwhile, I’m absolutely telling Zelk how taken Kat is with Steve’s unbleatable prowess at magical sheep herding with his big manly magical cantrip of magical water – "I had no idea this kind of spell existed.” – I’m sure she’ll love it!

Realizing the stick isn’t working, the Konrad man tries the carrot and pulls come cheese out of his bag. He breaks off an itty bitty piece, commensurate to his generosity, approaches one of the unshakable sheep lying on the bed, and my heart sinks when the minion raises its head at him, eyeing the bribe. Konrad gets pretty confident about the sheepish reaction of his target, which is probably why he doesn’t see it coming when Wooly’s head snaps forward and snatches the cheese out of his hand in one bite, gobbles it down and bleats at him all happy in what I’m pretty sure is sheep for – “Give mo-o-o-o-ore!”

Meanwhile, Mihai and big man Carlos seem to be hitting it off somewhat.

"Wha', portals? Them what did this?”

"Well, kinda. Not sure.”

"Eh, if them pendejos are learnin' that trick, we in fer a lot more trouble.”

"A what?”

"Trouble, it's like when--”

"No, the other...”

"A pendejo? It’s uh… whassa word… asshole!”

And that’s it, ladies and gentlemen, we can wrap up this whole trip right now, I finally hit peak awesome in my life.

"Hey Zelk, wanna know what they call an asshole on the other side of the galaxy?”

Ahem, so Konrad figures he can use the lazy bleater’s appetite in his favor, holds out the main chunk of cheese just out of reach until my minion is finally convinced to abandon his post, as it gets up and starts following the Scarlet Mage around.

"What about Emmental—uh, Elementals? You guys got any of those?”

"Oh, I think so. I’ve heard stories.”

And suddenly, my boy has the best idea he’s had all day – even if he probably didn’t realize it.

"They're trying to kill us all over here. Like, through subterfuge and shit.”

"Ta hell d’ya do ta them?”

"We? Nothing. Long story.”

And so the only sheep are the only ones eating the pillows. And unless those are filled with gumdrops and ice cream, they’re really no match for a good solid chunk of cheese – which I guess they’re not, because my troops start deserting en masse. Even the grumpy one by the corner that I thought would be rock solid ends up jumping through the portal, chasing after the cheese, only to be met with disappointment when my favorite sheep swoops in and gobbles it up first. Serves you right for leaving your post, Carl!

"Well, they kinda assholes over here too, but not that bad.”

"Sounds like the dragons on our side.”

"You got Dragons?”

"I've never seen one, but yes, we do. There's one that has gathered an army and is trying to take over the Vale. ” – then she turns to macho man Carlos for knowledge – "What was the name of the dragon again?”

"Uh… Shadowmire. He’s a pendejo too.”

That gets a chuckle out of me. And Broody Boy too, amazingly enough.

"Oh, ya like that word, huh?”

"It does roll nicely off the tongue… ‘Pendejo’”

It does, doesn’t it?

"Pendejo, pendejo, pendejo...” – i can’t resist repeating it to myself a few times, just to hear me say it, until i catch Zelk giving me the look of weird. – "It’s alien for asshole, alright!?”

Anyway…

"What about Dwarves, ya got any Dwarves?”

"What’s a…” – Broody Boy thinks for a second – "…Dwarf?”

Guess that rubs Carlos the wrong way, judging by the face he makes and the way he points at himself.

"Oh uh, no. Not that i know of, not yet.”

Meanwhile, Kitty Kat takes another sheep off Konrad's hands. "Thank you!"

It comes down to the final three. Stalwart warriors all, fearless in the face of watery cowing and incorruptible against dairy allurement, truest champions of steadfast stoic endurance and sobriety such as I’ve never known. Fluffle lands on one, gives it a little nudge and rides it all the way to the portal.

"Oh…” – remarks Master Dwarf, in disappointment that we do not yet (to my great regret) harbor his badass if diminutive kind – "Elves?”

"Oh yeah, just recently.”

"They smokin’ hot over there too?”

"Not sure, mostly just met guys.”

"Oh hombre, ya gotta fix that!”

Thanks for the tip, Wahrmann.

"I think I can carry one of the last two.” – says Kat, as she finally steps into this side of the portal.

"Close it! CLOSE IT NOW!!”

"Yeah, in a minute.”

"SHE’S GETTING AWAY, YOU FOOL!”

"Can you tell Zelk to smack you in the head for me?”

"She won’t do it, she thinks I’m crazy!”

It’s really vexing, actually. I’ve told her nothing but the truth ever since we got here. Anyway, the Armored Nymph displays her strength for all to see as she picks up the sheep with her girly arms, takes it in her girly frame and walks it back to the portal as her armor clatters and sways under her girly – nay, so very womanly – curves. Which I shall never see again, because Broody Boy & Co were all squeamish about it.

"Sigh…”

Then Carlos looks at Broody sidelong, as if to dare him - "Can ya carry one of the last too?”
"Uh, sure.”

Konrad daringly lands an eye on my lady and boldly remarks - "I thought they'd be heavier for you. You're not even out of breath.”

"Hmm? Oh, it was heavy, but I'm stronger than I look!” – she graces him with yet another smile that dispels all the Darkness in this whole city.

"You must be. You do this a lot, then? Are you a shepherd too?”

And then she laughs.

"No, but I did work with cattle before! I was a farmer before I became a knight.”

Not to be outdone, Broody Boy steps through the portal himself and gets his first glimpse into… no wait, he’s travelled the stars only last week. Prick.

"You guys… don’t have any water problems around here, do you?”

"Uh? No, got plenty a' water here.”

"Yeah… we do too.”

"Um, Mihai? You probably should come back here...”

"Yeah, I’m feeling dumber already.”

"Yeah…” – Broody Boy barely acknowledges, still transfixed for a moment before he steps back across the galaxy.

"So hey, how d'ya get past the Mallow Mallow Wall?”

"The what?”

"The thing that'll stop ya from travelling worlds, oi.”

"The…? I guess I just winged it.”

"Hah!” – Master Dwarf laughs, for some reason – "Muh man!”

"Hmm. You said you can close this, right?”

"Uh…”

"Yes.” – Replies the Crimson Mage as he starts to do his abracadabra shit and the portal starts shrinking - "We'd better do. We wouldn't want a dragon to try and squeeze through next.”

"No, you really wouldn't want to. Well, thank you again for your help, and good luck with those Elementals!”
"So tha's it? We move them sheep and close the portal ta hell?”

"Uh, Dust.”

"Uh, where?”

"It’s here.” – Broody boy points skyward to the ground.

"Oh, ya serious? Who the carajo calls their world Dust?”

"Not a bad point, but now I’m curious.”

Broody Boy shrugs – "What do you call yours?”

"S’Arda, oi!”

"Sarda?”

"No! Shi… uh, Arda!”

"Huh…”

"Huh…”

While all this goes on, the portal shrinks smaller and smaller, and my heart along with it. The Vermillion Mage man flashes his usual smile – "Thank you. Take care. Tell your shepherd friend that it was all our fault.”

"Oh, that should help a lot. Thanks!”

"Here, have these cookies my fiancee gave me. I was saving them for later after we cleared this place and finished our mission, but it was nice meeting you, so take these to remember us by.”

Wonder Boy tosses the bag of cookies so she’ll have something to remember them by, without mentioning my name to her even once. She grabs the handkerchief in a masterful catch, as I get to watch her smile once last time.

"Oh, thank you! If you ever need any help, don't hesitate to ask for us! We're the Acorn Avengers!”

Steve can't help but smile at that name. Wondering once again why everything apart from my forced separation from my beloved is always so wonderful.

"We’re the…” – Broody boy starts, but trails off as he comes up empty and his brain cell fails to come up with anything before the portal closes.

And then the portal closes.

"Well… that was certainly something.” – Remarks the Teenage Green Mage with that cute smile of hers.

"You guys really don’t call yourselves anything?”

Stevie the Steve shrugs mischievously – "We were the 113th Adjunct. We didn't have to name ourselves. Now that we aren't anymore, I guess we've just been too busy to come up with something else.”

"We could be the Sheep Herders.” – suggests the Fluffster – "Konrad did seem to have a lot of fun with them.”

"Hmm, I can't remember the last time I pet an animal.”

"Hmm…”

Watch out, guys. Steve took it seriously.

"How about Dark Lords Annonymous?”

"Isn’t that your schtick?”

"Could use some staff, to clean the gutters. By the way…”

"What?”

"Whenever you find another World from now on, make sure to keep telling them about the Elementals. Fucking Jerry figured he’d wipe us all out over what the humans on another world did to him? We’ll pre-empt the bastard, and have everyone know what the piece of shit is capable of.”

"What if they’re peaceful elsewhere?”

"What if they’re doing the exact same thing? You heard the Acorn Avengers, Elementals are assholes over there too. Imagine if Jerry took a trip over there and tipped them just so. What do you think would happen?”

"I’ll… think about it.”

"I think we've cleared the place.”

And so the boys get on with their trek to the next exciting portal, hoping maybe the next one will open up to a beach full of chicks in bikinis or something. Along the way, they find a door. It’s a nice door, with a knob that turns and… actually it doesn’t turn, because Mihai can’t catch a break with these things today. So he drops to a knee, and just as I get ready to start yelling at him to kick it down, Broody Boy starts thinking up something devious in his pretty little head. He sees next to nothing when he peeks through the keyhole, but for what he had in mind it was plenty. And just as his thought start to become clear to me I finally realize how much of a mad lad he can actually be.

"You’re gonna what!?”

I don’t even have time to finish the thought before Crazy Broody vanishes into thin air and Zero-Shifts through the keyhole, clear to the other side of the room! Why can’t I do that!?

Anyway, soon as he does his crazy teleport thing, he catches sight of this ominous silhouette of some dipshit with a sword in his hand, all scared senseless of what’s on the other side of the door. Oh, you poor thing.

The beginning of Mihai’s career as a horror story monster couldn’t be any more fitting than jumping silent through a keyhole and stalking his terrified prey in the dark, though fortunately for Griggs Mook G, instead of biting his head off as soon as he’s in range, Mihai just knocks the sword out of his hand and pins him to the wall with his arm.

Unfortunately for Griggs Mook G, he’s a total utter pussy who can’t stop screaming in terror just because someone grabbed and pinned him from the dark when he was already terrified after his whole base got wiped out… ok, maybe he’s got a point.

"SHUT UP!”

On the other side of the door, Mr Konrad winces in impatience – "Okay, let me have the key, Steve.” – and so he takes the key and intrepidly inserts it into the keyhole, deftly turning it in his hand until the door goes ’oh no Mr Konrad, I’ve had enough!’ and opens wide for him to traverse as he please – and his friends, too.

And so they do, and on the other side of this shameless piece of wood they find none other than Mihai, who had traversed that keyhole long before Konrad and the party and was now making the little troll inside scream in terror as he coarsely manhandled him. Forget what I said earlier about him having a point, this guy is a disgrace.

And so Steve knows what he must do, summons up his magical power and splashes the little hapless pathetic thug in the face (the other one, not Mihai) with his special Steve-brand magical water – properties include lowering your overall level of pansy by making you stop screaming like a little bitch.

The hapless pathetic gentleman finally stops screaming thanks to the power of Steve’s Magical Water ^TM, and the coughing side-effects subside in a matter of seconds.

"It's a gift.”

"Thanks.”

"Wh-what the hell!” – the deplorable gentleman’s power of speech wondrously returns, as he catches the broody sight of his assailant in the Sunny light – "Mihai?”

Broody Boy recognizes what seems to be his name, as his head tilts in understanding - "Gerald? Did you retards think for a second before you rounded up a bunch of monsters you didn't know a thing about, or was this just part of your plan?”

Clearly distressed by the harsh language, the Gérald person struggles to free himself from his antagonizer’s broody clutches until his eyes land on the veritable entourage of individuals of the battle hardened persuasion looking at him with the telltale lack of reverence in their eyes, to which he curtly but rather aptly remarks – "Shit.”

The situation being thus succinctly surmised, the aloof former Whisperer therefore resumes the pertinent pleasantries – "You kept screaming like a little bitch for a full ten seconds after i tried to calm you down, a little too late to be worried about your chances. I'll ask again, what was gathering all those Golbins for?”

The look of confusion Mr Gérald gives his erstwhile associate leads his brain cell to conclude further elaboration is in order – "The fucking midget monsters you were keeping in the warehouse, dipshit.”

Dipshit indeed, as we soon come to witness for ourselves the profound logic behind today’s mandatory clusterfuck du jour – "What, those? They're pets, that's all! If you want to ask someone about them, go see Griggs!”

Master Konrad does appear to find this humorous.

"A little late for that. You damn near released a plague of those pets in the city, and that was before they summoned a monster swarm all over this place. You better hope none of them got out into the town proper.”

"Wha-what? I have no idea what you're talking about! Everything was fine until you showed up!”

This is truly a meeting of the minds.

"Hey pal, you wouldn't happen to have a key to this place, would you?"”

"Right pocket!”

Konrad reaches over and takes the key without causing the gentleman further discomfort, genially greeting himself out of the room. That’s when Gérald prepares to pick up his wordy acumen and deliver to Mihai several cutting remarks that would no doubt cut into the very depths of his being to the end of his days, but Mihai quickly retorts with a crass but effective punch that sends the last affiliate of that illustrious and venerable institution known colloquially as Griggs’ Thugs off to the land of slumber, where he would certainly dream of things that this humble Dark Lord feels all too inadequate – not to mention decent – do properly describe.

After properly fitting him with a pair of manacles wholly unworthy of his miscreantic self, the party leaves the asshole to sleep it off and go on about their business.

Two more portals hang nearby. Konrad starts opening doors, and it’s all very fascinating until they hear rats squeaking.

--

Some sheep, some dipshit in a dark room, I was really hoping things were starting to wind down and we could all go home. The old familiar feeling was even starting to creep in, the one I had when I was little and every time I’d get desummoned there was this little flicker of terror that I was dying for real and the next time Nick needed someone to pick on it’d be a whole different mass of energy named Smirk that would come alive. The same feeling I got, amped many times over for a few years ever since I’d heard about the Shield project, and the same dread I’d accepted ever since I knew I was eating Mihai’s mind. I thought about Jasmine, and her fatalistic resignation to being dead, despite still kind of walking and talking and feeling pain for all the things that according to her had been done by someone else. Started to wonder if she was right, if after Jacob wipes me from Mihai’s mind it’ll be a whole new mass of Darkness thinking he’s me, like I think I’m the same guy from two hundred years ago. Maybe I’ll vanish on the spot, or maybe I’ll just hang there without a summoner, slowly withering away until maybe Marcus goes to the local asylum for new bodies and the last thing I see before I crumble into a gibbering mess is the next Smirk looking at me.

I was thinking too much again. It was time to try and annoy Zelk some more, but I’d run out of material. I could see why she and Steve were a good match – opposites don’t really attract anywhere near as much as the saying would have you believe, but in their case, I could just see it clicking.

"What?”

"Nothing.” – oh no, I’ve been caught staring. Lucky me, there was something on the way to drown out the doom and gloom – "I, uh… do you hear that?”

So there was something rustling off to the west wing of the building, maybe past the door to the side access corridor, I don’t know. We could have gone in through the loading ramps but I didn’t care to make it easy for any monster swarm to ambush me. Tighter quarters were always best for when you’re outnumbered, I’m guessing Zelk agreed since she didn’t oppose. Before I could approach the door, though, I sense some kind of Magic floating right above me. So I do the standard thing that I do in this kind of situation and look up, and what do I find?

CLICK ME BABY ONE MORE TIME:

I don’t think tall dark and smoking hot was coined after this one, but I could be wrong. How do I describe this without sounding tawdry… slender, long white hair, dark blue skin, I will not describe what she was wearing in front of Amber, sharp features on her face that would make her so gorgeous if not for the markings all over that made it look like a spider was sitting on it.

"Ohai! Are you from Fallcrest too? Nice place, I just met the Acorn Avengers and this Carlos guy who calls people ‘pendejo’, but only if they’re assholes! Do you like water? We got so much water here, we’re looking to export! Tell your friends! Do you have friends? Why do you have a spider on your face?”

And that’s when the piece of resistance – as it were – makes itself known. For while I’m wooing Spider Face in the hope that maybe she knows Kat, her friend Anthrax just happens to round the corner. Now, I would have explained to Anthrax that what me and my new friend Spider Face got going is purely platonic - at least until she decides to lose the ink, but he doesn’t seem to want to hear it. Maybe it’s Friday, maybe it’s the weather, or maybe Anthrax is just a giant man-eating serpent.

HI. I'M A GIANT MAN-EATING SERPENT:

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Picture our man Eltsuihlul, now imagine he’s this strong but nice mercenary bloke who will save the doggy from the burning house because deep down he’s a softy. Ok, now imagine this three-hundred pound ogre-man with no wings, a face made of granite, smile torn ear to ear across said face and dead eyes, and whose breath set the house on fire in the first place just because he wanted to hear the screams. THAT’s Anthrax.

So Anthrax coils up for a second before springing his insanely massive body right at my poor dainty frame just as I ignite a spell that I know will never make it. It’s ok though, because Zelk’s spell does. Right in the split second when it snaps its maw open at me – close enough that i spotted the tonsils on the motherfucker, this big round scorching-hot fireball whizzes past and nails the serpentine bastard right in the mouth. It gets knocked into the wall and drops for a moment, but it doesn’t even touch the ground before recovering and lunging right at me again. Now not gonna lie, this thing was every bit as terrifying as that time I caught Grinning Bertha naked in the infirmary and she flashed her death-grin at me before starting to step my way. But just like back then, I already had my Black Nail handy to nail the bitch’s head right to the floor! And I let fly, man, I don’t screw around when horrifying creatures from the nether breach into my personal space. Spell connects, snake goes down, and it looks almost as pissed as Bertha did with the way it hisses and thrashes everywhere.

Zelk however decides her competition lies somewhere on the rafters, and aims her second fireball up at Spider-Face. Now I figure this is some kind of compulsion to take charge and establish herself as the alpha female, but her Fireball seems to hit a wall just before finding its mark, as it crashes into something nobody had noticed was there. Now I’ve seen my fair share of barriers, but not very many of them will completely negate a missile that powerful without the denial zone so much as curving.

Before I can figure out what kind of defense that is, though, I start to notice Anthrax getting kind of blurry – "Oh fuck off, you can do that too!?” – and before I can even finish complaining about what bullshit that is, a little corner of my mind starts to wonder just what it was that its tail was whipping toward right before it vanished. And then it hit me.

Both me and Zelk hit the gravel after the snake’s whipping lower body knocks us both off our feet and right on our asses, and I have no time to think of how much more comfy that must’ve been for her than for me as I snap to my feet and try to get my bearings, only to look to the spot where I shot my binding nails a second ago and realize they’re no longer in place. Whether Spider-Face had dispelled them wasn’t the kind of question I really had time to ask, as just as Zelk gets back on her feet and starts lighting up another one, I notice the rustling on the ground and the sound of this really heavy and pissed off hissing maybe ten feet away from us.

I had maybe a second to try and guess what was coming. The hissing kept getting louder as I rushed over to Zelk, and just as I maneuver myself between her and it, the freaking dam breaks. I’m talking a jet of this thick foul green crap that made my eyes burn through the lids – and they’re made of Magic! It just keeps on spraying right at me for a full two seconds before the fucker finally lets up and I’m covered in this otherworldy gunk that makes the Voluptis sewers smell like roses and happiness, and I can just feel how poisoned I’d be right now if I was made of flesh and blood like everyone else.

YOU’RE WELCOME, ZELK! You know, a little nod, a smile, tiny bow before the Dark Lord? No, you just switch your favorite Fireball to this low rumbling dark gold pulse in your hand as you jump out of cover and—oh, I see what you’re doing.

Zelky-Zelk aims her girl power right at Spider-Face. Only a little off, maybe a couple degrees each way, at this distance. Her hands twitch, the spell flies off – and I remember Nick learning in class how Earth Magic has a 0.2% percent lower accuracy rate than the other big three. Yeah, it doesn’t matter. Both quakes detonate precisely on each side of Tall Dark & Blue. Now normally just being sandwiched by two spells as heavy as that would be pretty disorienting – IF the spell went off on good solid ground. What was Spider-Face standing on?

The roof goes off like one of those shredder bombs that spit shrapnel all over the place. Wood chips and shattered roof tiles peppering everything around and between them. Now I don’t know if Spider-Face actually speaks Imperial or not, but her screaming was pitch-perfect right before the whole thing just caved under her.

"Who-o-hoah... shi--” – then Anthrax decloaks right on top of me – "Oh shit!”

You know, most people don’t know what it feels like to be eaten. And that’s a good thing, I’m happy for them and all. I wouldn’t want anyone to be eaten, that feels horrendous. Speaking from experience here, now.

By the time I remembered snake fucker existed again, he was already gaping wide and bearing down on me like a giant snake about to swallow a guy whole (what, I need to come up with a comparison for THAT?). And he does. Just gobbles me right up like a pork rind. I could feel the throat muscles constricting around my head, then crushing my chest and down the rest of me until I was in this sac-tube thing full of caustic gunk, being squeezed and thrashed about from every direction. I never really gave it much thought before, but I, Former Agent Shadow Flame Smirk Phillip Bradshaw the Third, founder and overlord of Dark Lords Anonymous, do solemnly vow that I will never EVER make fun of another mouse for as long as I live.

So yeah, I don’t know what else the past has in store for me back in memory land but I doubt Elder Smirk can ever top this shit. Nothing that lives and breathes can ever hope to come back from this, all that follows is unspeakable agony as the devouree suffocates in the crushing burning dark until sweet merciful death finally releases him from this mortal coil.
Well, here’s the thing:

I don’t breathe. I don’t have a problem seeing in the dark. And while those two things only really give me a very relative edge right about now, I also DON’T TAKE SHIT FROM OVERSIZED VERMIN!

"Oh just you wait, motherfucker, I’m the kind of food that keeps on feeding!”

I’m all confused and disoriented, and the thing that keeps me going is – weirdly enough – the blasting from outside to tell me that Zelk is still on the case, probably going all outraged about ’how dare you eat Smirk, you bastard!’ Yeah, she’s totally saying that. Me, I thrash and kick about but everything around me is too thick and too soft to really make a dent, even if I could punch and kick right now. I kept thinking about a knife, just one measly cheese knife would make all the difference, but no luck. I try using my nails, but I’m not nearly edgy enough for those to make a dent. That horror book about those monsters that bite their way out of your chest is such bullshit, they’d give you some minor stomach irritation at best.

Still, I had to do something. If cutting wasn’t an option, maybe I could make myself the worst bowel obstruction in the galaxy. And so I curled into a ball, until my arms and legs could apply some solid pressure against the stomach lining, and I started pushing out. At first, I kept being thrashed about like nobody’s business but once I jammed my fist into my palm and started pressing out like in an elbow strike, then the fucker couldn’t just overpower me anymore and I started to feel it drag.

"I’m sorry, I should’ve come with a warning label!”

I press my other elbow to my thigh and try to raise myself up against the bastard’s gut. Oh Anthrax really feels it now, I can hear the hissing all around me!

"Zelk, hang in there just a little bit longer!”

I don’t know if that was a response, but a fireball hits so close to me this time that I get all shuddered around and lose my footing.

"Fuck!”

I get compressed back into the coffin position and slide further down the snake’s gut, but that’s when something hard scrapes against my leg. My hand shoots out to grab on to it, and I realize what it is almost immediately: a bone. Stuck against the stomach lining, must’ve belonged to whatever creature it ate last. Oh Anthrax, you’re so fucked now.

My hand yanks it out after some struggling. It’s too tight around me for me to look at it and see how big or sharp it is, but it feels solid, hefty. I’d have liked a knife better, but I’ll take it. I raise my arm up to my chest, use my offhand to create some space, raise my new ultra-stabbing weapon of doom and shove it up into the stomach wall. In the midst of all the thrashing and sloshing, there’s a definite thunk sound I hear as I feel the bone pierce through the tissue, right before everything reverberates around me as the hissing this time is a whole lot more shrill and high pitched.

"My Ophidian is a little rusty, but I’m pretty that’s the universal word for when you fucked with the wrong guy! Eh, Anthy!?”

Ugh dammit, I wish I had two of these to get some proper leverage. I wish there wasn’t a war on, I wish Jerry didn’t exist and I wish I wasn’t inside this fucking monster from another world, with it’s caustic fucking gunk inside my nose. But most of all, I wish to pull back the bone for another stab at this bastard. And what do you know, that one came true!

So I stab again, and I keep stabbing, and the fucking monster keeps reeling every time I do it. Until an idea hits me, and this time I try and stick my hand through those tears in the lining I just made. Doesn’t go all the way through, but all I really need is a few fingers. And once they go through, I start tearing.

This time, she shrieking is the loudest thing in this whole party. And you know I hate to disappoint!

"Yeah, when people say I give them ulcers they don’t usually mean it literally! I’m a fair guy, but this fucking heat is just driving me Smirk-berserk insane!!!”

So I tear and stab and tear and stab and tear and stab again. And just when the idea hits me that I could probably just climb my way out by puncturing all the way back to the mouth like this, that’s when I’m also hit by this massive torrent of insanely foul gunk that just drags me up like… well, like exactly what I am right now.

"BLEAAAAARGH!!!!!”

I don’t breathe, but I still pant now and then out of reflex. The second I see the light of day, I let out the biggest gasp I’ve ever gasped in my entire gasp. I skid across the gravel, now thick with the same gunk I was… SUBMERGED in just now. Now I’m only covered in it, which is such a step up in my life, I would immediately feel uplifted if not for the giant angry snake hissing all furious at me for not having been digested. Well Anthrax, you know what? The feeling is fucking mutual! See this black flame right here in my hand!? I call this one Dead Spike, I don’t use it very often but aside from my big gun it’s actually the most powerful attack I’ve got! Have at it buddy, you deserve it!

"…!!”

It’s not a really big fancy explosion, more like a cannon blast. It’s localized, but when it hits, it SHREDS. And that’s the last thing to ever burst through Anthrax’s throat, as its head goes flying one way and it’s body keeps thrashing about all crazy like a headless chicken. Is that why snakes taste like it? Eh, who cares.

Zelk is all tired and panting, like she just helped me kill a giant snake.

"Are you ok?”

She's talking to me? – "I, uh... i need to rinse myself out”

She looks me up and down – "Yeah...”

I look toward the warehouse - "I dunno, maybe i can ask Spider-Face?”

She frowns and looks that way as well. Either way, I look at the bone still in my hand, belonging to whatever creature just saved my life. I walk over to Anthrax’s severed head, raise my weapon up high and stab it down hard between the eyes. Good a place as any to put it to rest.

"What’s that about?”

"Dunno, but… whatever it is, it’s been avenged.”

--

But back to the Doom Guys, Steve casts his Ring if lighty light down the corridor where they heard some rats, to to the astonishment of all, reveal some rats. Crawling towards them slow-like, about eight of them. Very exciting, if a little weird. Rats don’t normally crawl towards you, nor with… that kind of… purpose? I mean, it’s weird but these aren’t behaving like any rats I’ve ever seen. I’d tell Steve to splash them with some water, but I think they’re freaky chill as it is. So Konrad of course takes a step back, assesses the situation and decides this situation can be improved via the judicious application of fire. So he casts Fire. On the rats. And the fire flies, you know, it’s a nice fireball, crackling away all menacing at the rats.

And I mean, they’re rats. What are they gonna do, stop the fire by being so immune to it that the spell just fizzles out on its own when it touches them, having no effect whatsoever but to dispel the illusion that they’re rodents to reveal yet some other kind of freaky monster from outer space? Yeah that’s exactly what they did, actually. And you know, it’s ok, I’m not upset. This is just how it’s gonna be going forward, because Broody Boy and party are so special and chosen and have to trigger every cosmic horror they come across to freaking snap its eyes open. No, it’s fine!

Look at all these little pointy motherfuckers. What is that, a scorpion tail? Are they fighting fucking scorpions with wings down there now? I was gonna say they remind me of this thing I saw in a book once, called a monkey, but those were all furry and round while these pendejos are all jagged-like. I can’t tell if I'm meant to laugh or run away screaming.

Think I’ll go with the latter. Hey Sunny Bunny, you take over for a bit.

Um… m-me!? I-I… I, um, well, so… s-so the um, the s-scorpion monkeys, they came flying right at us, right? So… yeah, they do that and keep spitting a lot of insults at us – I mean, they sounded like insults even though I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but they looked and sounded all crabby and nervy, and…

"Shit, evil Fairies!”

Yeah! So, two of them, like, flank Konrad and go at him with their stings, but Konrad he twists around and avoids one, and I guess the other one must have hit his armor because he was pretty much fine right after. But then one comes right for Théo and manages to hit him right in the neck! Only… no, it actually missed somehow and got really baffled and miffed because it was sure it had just scored a direct hit…

A-anyway, Fluffle points his wand at Théo as casts Haste on him. It’s a really short Haste, but Théo makes it count when he just swings his flail at one and sort of yanks it back, and then he goes up with his shield and bashes it in! I mean, the scorpion-monkey gets like, impaled on the spikes, it’s kind of morbid but then he does it again and this time the second one gets impaled right along with its buddy and it sort of looks like they are kissing, which is really weird and I sort of caught myself thinking if he’d done it on purpose, b-but anyway!

The last four little monsters go high, right over Théo and Konrad, and they surround Mihai and Amber. And then two of them, like, swoop down on Amber with their stings, and they sting her! And it hurts! It hurts worse than that time in Goodman’s corridor, there’s blood everywhere and the wound just burns!

But… but then Mihai swoops in like, angry! And he thrusts up with Waterglass, and before the monkey-scorpion even knows what hit it, it gets impaled! All flash-frozen in a second, sticking to the blade, but then Mihai twists around and swings his sword at the one next to it and sort of slams it into the corpse of its crony, and they both shatter when Waterglass smashes into the wall. It buys Amber enough time to pull out the Magic Wand and seal the wound, and… phew, the pain starts to abate a little and she can breathe again. I’m relieved, but then the other two freaks swoop down on Mihai’s back! And he can’t turn around in time to catch them, so i… well, i… I step in and I grip harder on Umbraglint and Thunderglint. I’m not fast enough to catch the one that stings first, but Mihai’s got really good armor and the sting just bounces right off. The second one, there was this split second where I was afraid I’d miss it or be too slow for that one too before it attacked but I shook that off and concentrated, I just locked on to the little fiend and swung high! Daddy’s swords just turn the air like they know exactly how to catch it and they fry the little bastard even before the blades make contact and slice right through…! I-I mean, um… they kill it.

It… falls to the floor in three pieces, still kinda twitching with a bit of smoke rising up.

Konrad goes in with his Life Sword and hits the other one. The Life element seemed to be the bane of it somehow, it just seemed to snuff the… life out of it? Anyway it fell dead to the floor like a sort of ragdoll, while Konrad started maneuvering himself to cut another one.

And then Steve casts a spell on the rest and they all die.

2B CONTINUED

Posts : 3812 Join date : 2017-05-16

Smirk is, um… well, solid Magic doesn’t really have any adherence, so nothing really sticks to it, but you know how we have no lungs? He can’t just blow his nose when it’s full of… yeah, it’s… it’s not fun.

Anyway, he decides to soldier on and move on to the warehouse. Not through the loading ramps, he can tell it’s too exposed (his training is really something!). He takes the side door to the access corridor through the mess and the staff facilities, but Zelk’s attack must have knocked out the lights earlier because it’s pretty dark inside. She starts to step inside but Smirk raises an arm to stop her, and that’s when she notices the skittering. She squints her eyes to try and make out what’s causing it, but it’s too dark inside.

But Smirk, he can see in the dark just fine! That’s why he stopped her the second he saw the approaching sp…. Um, the… the spi--

SPIDERS! Big giant hairy ones, about the size of those rust roaches from before, crawling all over the floor, the walls, the ceiling. You could see all six of their eyes glinting as they rushed at me for an autograph.

A few of them were so happy as they stepped a little into the light, they started raising their front legs and pointing those fangs right at me as they made to jump through the air, just in time to play catch with Zelk’s fireball as it scattered onto the first half dozen rabid fans. The temperature rose in a second as they all started running around screeching, spreading the love and lighting up the hallway for her to work her magic on the second batch of admirers that were already tripping all over themselves to sink their fangs into her magnetic complexion. I tell you, those things were on fire!

Then another dozen swarm the hallway, I snap my fingers and they all die, much to Zelk’s unspoken relief at not having to deal with that much attention in one day – I know how tough it is to be popular, but she just can’t turn it off.

It goes quiet for a second as we walk in, which in my world is an inadmissible state of affairs – "Spider Face, are you ok? I think we got off on the wrong foot back there, I’m actually pretty nice once you get to know me. If you’re worried about my associate here--”

I forget what I was saying as the mess window next to me shatters to pieces as yet another giant spider crashes through it, right at my poor humble self. It’s only when I manage to catch the hatchet it was bringing down on me that I realize how much bigger it is than the others, what with the human…ish head and shoulders, with actual arms and hands capable of grabbing the aforementioned hacking implement, it’s actually kind of fascinating as I struggle for my life, until I manage to twist it at just the right angle.

The bigger better spider:

"I’m sorry, can I help you?” – I ask as I bash its head a few times against the shard of glass sticking out of the broken window. By the time the hatchet falls to the floor and the thing just hangs limp with its jaw sprawled over the ledge like it’s trying to eat it, I figure it’s no longer interested and move on.

The second I turn my back, the thing jumps to life and tries sink its fangs into my merry disposition but Zelk quickly admonishes the faux-pas by way of ice spell to its face (what was left of it) and leaves it sticking to the wall to think about what it’s done.

Seriously, I’ve walked across corridors in less time than it takes me to tell all this. I ignite a shadow flare in my hand and kick the exit door open, me and Zelk jump out covering each our corner and I gotta take a second to appreciate how I didn’t even have to talk this over with her beforehand. Osprey assault discipline really is just like ours.

So the warehouse is a big place, with high stacks full of barrels that stretch into the dark where Zelk can’t see. They’re supposed to be booze, and I’d have no problem jumping right into a man-sized casket full of 80-proof to make sure all this gunk would wash right off, and then another just to see if I could get a buzz that way, but Virginie had told us that Griggs might have been smuggling woven explosives in these, and I have to say the little isolating runes carved into each stack did little to disprove her. Forget the Goblins, Griggs was just a walking disaster machine.

Forget Griggs though, because just a few steps into the warehouse I find that rascal Mr Portal, hovering in the middle of the floor like it owns the place as it consorts with my old friend Spider-Face! And though part of me can’t help but wonder what that swirling interdimensional gate has that I don’t, it’s just in my nature to make nice and be friendly.

"Ohai again! I’m sorry I was so rude back there, catering wouldn’t get off my ass about the fried spider! I’m Serious Smirk, by the way, part time secret agent and local Dark Lord, and this is my associate, Freeze the Fairy! She doesn’t talk much but she really likes working out, beach volleyball and fire! Do you like fire too? (Not gonna lie, that’s kinda hot)”

I dunno, that usually works to melt the ice but the only thing about me that seems to get her attention is the black flame on my hand.

"Uh, this? How’d it get here?” – Silly me, of course a charged offensive spell would put her on the defensive! I hurry up and throw it away, over to my left under the stacks where all those monsters were hiding in amb— oh no, I’m so terrible. I mean, all the screeching and shrieking were kinda funny, but I can tell by the look on her face that we don’t really share the same sense of humor.

"Oh!” – i blurt – "Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t… is brunch off the table now?”

She looks about as amused as the creaking storage stacks after being blasted with magical Darkness, but her sour mood lasts only until around the time I start hearing this other noise coming from somewhere across the galaxy, this skittering from beyond the big swirling hole in space-time that starts to turn into a low rumble. Her frown does fade a little, though the uppity confidence doesn’t really turn it upside down. Doesn’t matter to me when there’s a party to be had, i’ve got enough powder left in the mag for another hundred of—and I just had to run my big mouth.

Off in the dark, I start to see that glint of black eyes, half a dozen a head, only multiplied by more than I care to count. I light up another flame just as I see spider legs starting to scamper from the other side of the portal, when Zelk suddenly shouts – "UP!”

I don’t have time to see exactly what it is, only that it seems to get bigger as it comes down on me before I shoot the flame up and dive out of the way and miss the plunging charge by a hair’s breadth.

Whatever it is, it hits the ground like it wants to crush it. And once the black flames burn out I see what it looks like.

Give us a kiss!:

The thing lunges right at me. I do the same because the bastard startled me so much I couldn’t think to run or cast, but I’m still not so stupid as to get down into a grappling match with a thing covered in barbs, so I stomp my pivot foot into the ground before I swing a low kick and sweep the leg. The barbed asshole gets tripped into a somersault and lands on its face on the ground, and I follow right up with a folk’s elbow right to its head, but Barbie spins around and grabs my arm on the descent, twisting itself out of the way and maneuvering on top as it grabs my throat and snaps its maw open at my head! I still haven’t gotten over the last devouring prank, so I politely swat its arm away and headbutt the fucker right on the snout as it stumbles down. I kick it off and jump to my feet, but Barbie just coils and lunges right back up at me. I try to throw it off, but it uses the momentum against me and tosses me back like a darkness ragdoll! I roll as I hit the ground, find my feet in a hurry, only to look up expecting the bastard to be right on my ass, and find it standing back as a freaking swarm of spiders – well over three dozen – pour out of the portal and converge around Spider-Face.

They look at us two puny little Dustlings for a second, probably to just let us absorb the horror and all that shit – and I’ve got to admit I was really bracing myself for a really painful afternoon now – until this loud cracking sound thunders right to my left, and this wrecker of a Quake spell blasts right under the support struts of the big warehouse stack full of those red barrels, kicking up before toppling to the side.

Realizing what the cunning Miss Freeron has just done, I jump back and bolt out of dodge as Spider-Face and all her many friends look up in this fleeting moment of curiosity before the sense of danger kicks in.

I sense a whole slew of Magical commands whizzing past my head as the barrels start to hit the ground. Some of the spiders jump aside, while Barbie punches one all proud, as the contents burst all over. It must never have heard of Shatterclay or Composition Three, because aside from the horrified realization finally creeping up Spider-Face’s… face, none of her friends break ranks while screaming.

I couldn’t tell if Zelk knew the exact arming sequence for this kind of hard-packed explosive compound or if she was just trying to brute-force it, but after a tiny lull in the magical battery beaming out of her head, she sends one final command right before diving to the floor. I figure best do the same.

BOOM!:

Mihai rushes to Amber’s side, same as me. She forces her shaky smile as she leans against the wall, trying to catch her breath.

"I’m all right...”

She fools him about as well as she fools me, I felt how her wound burned. I can see how much he wants to fuss over her, piggyback her back to Virginie’s house and away from this place. But he can also see how bad she wants to stand here, shoulder to shoulder with him. It puts a terrible weight on his… shoulders, and for what must have felt like an eternity of trying to compose himself, he finally just nods.

Konrad goes to scan the monkey that stung Amber, and I make eyes at Mihai to go and check on that. He doesn’t get the hint, so I turn him around and push him away.

"Go on now, shoo…” – I whisper to him, though it’s pointless since she can hear me anyway. Mihai finally takes the hint and joins the boys, giving me enough privacy to take Amber aside and check her wound.

She gets really flustered and starts to protest, but I stick my finger against her nose and stare at her until she relents. There’s still a lot of blood, but I get a good look thanks to the lighting from… well, me.

"Mmmm…. Fluffllle!”

"W-what!?”

She raises her voice as she starts to go red, because she’d rather tough it out and bear a scar than let herself be properly healed, which is why I have to be the grownup in the room and put my foot down.

"Nuh-uh!” – I have to hold her down and and give her the stare – "I’ll stick my finger in your eye! I’ll do it!”

She gulps down and stops struggling until Fluffle enters the room – "Hii, Fluffle. Amber, um… needs a little magic to get back on her feet. Do you mind?”

"Oh, of course not! Where…?”

I point to her chest – "Right around here.”

"Oh… OH!” – he gets flustered as well.

"I-its ok! I don’t really need…” – "No, you really do.” – "I don’t!” – "You do!”

"Uhm…”

I smile – "I’m sorry, she’s being such a baby…”

"I-it’s ok, I’ll just…” – he flies closer, shuts his eyes hard and then covers them with one hand while he points with his wand.

"Ok, a little lower. Just a little lower… fly a little to the right. Point… just… a little…. there!”

So Konrad touches the Scorpion-Bat-Monkey’s corpse to find out it’s full of venom, lucky Amber that she didn’t get poisoned. It could turn invisible back when it still had a head, was immune to fire and poison and ripped off my ability to see in the dark. It could shapeshift into a rat too, and probably a whole assortment of small animals that… wait a second, does that mean they have rats where these things are from?

Anyway, another thing they have is these… I don’t know what to call it, these big red toothy motherfuckers with wings. Imagine one of those monkeys on the floor, make it twice as big as a man, ripped like a brick shithouse with horns and a tail that could probably break you in half. I dunno, Fil, you got a name for those?

Anyway, that’s what sent them little Bat-Monkeys over here – probably to gauge how friendly we were to rodents and sting teenage girls in the chest.

Speaking of which, Amber finally comes out of that room, looking healed up but kinda awkward for some reason.

"They're little demons full of poison. You're very lucky, Amber. Fire doesn't hurt them, and they can't be poisoned. They can see in the dark, turn invisible, and change form. Everyone be on your guard. We should head west right now to close that portal. Something big is ordering them to come through.”

"Shit. I guess I really am lucky. Th-thanks for the help, Fluffle.”

"It's no problem.”

What might be a problem is the Magic wafting off of the far side of the western wall, though judging how weak it is, maybe not. Still, no harm checking it out and killing whatever it is. Doesn’t take long before the Doom Guys reach a shower room, dimly lit from this light hanging from the ceiling, big pool of blood on the floor. Konrad goes in to check, doesn’t take him long to find the mangled source of all the red. Poor bastard never stood a chance.

Konrads goes back and shuts the door behind him – "I have successfully detected the power source for the showers... Let's move on.”

Very exciting, the party listens to Konrad and gets a move on as the magic man senses another trace of Magic further up ahead, but behold! Whilst moving north, Mihai turns his head a full 20 degrees and he observes a place known in Lofellian parlance as an infirmary – a place for the infirm and the broken, ransacked shelves and drawers, shattered glass and toppled gurneys, oh and Portals!

A relatively modest portal stands swirling in the center of the room, not any smaller than its brethren previously encountered so far but no flashier either. In most respects quite the garden variety interstellar space-time gateway if not for the downright chthonian landscape that lay beyond it.

I’m talking sunless sky full of dark clouds glowing red from the lava on the ground that Mr Volcano off in the distance must’ve thrown up in the last ten minutes or so. The scorching heat and the rotten egg smell wafting in from the plain of fire round out what is sure to be the idyllic tourist spot of the galaxy if you happen to be made of sulphur!

"NOPE!”

"Close it! Close it!”

I love these two and I will lay down my life to see them through this whole shit show. Which is more than I can say for the Doom Boys over here, who all of a sudden can’t muster enough creepy power to close one miserly portal shut! What are you afraid of, hurting its feelings!? Put your backs into it, you bunch of losers!

But no no no no, this Portal is special! It refuses to close until its big brother up north does likewise! Oh, I won’t do it until I am shown proper deference, you see! Maybe it wants a brandy and some ash-garnished oysters to really put it the mood, or maybe we could just beat it into submission and get it over with? No? We’re just gonna do what it wants, are we?

Well, we here at Dark Lords, Teenage Girls and Fairies Incorporated are nothing but accommodating of prissy portals that demand special treatment, and as the party discusses how to best indulge this transgalactic prick, that’s when the World Blender decides to show them another party trick for shits and giggles.

And giggles it is, as Mr Shroud decides to tickle their Veil Sense regarding some fabulous prize dropping in to the north. Mr Konrad takes a peek outside to see they all they have to do is backtrack a little the way they came and they too could be the happy winners of a small glass bottle and a roll of parchment!

Suspecting no foul play whatsoever, the party happily moves along like the proud lemmings they are, right to the intersection that would in any other circumstance be ambush alley if not for the implied trustworthiness of whoever dropped that bomb— I mean fabulous Bottle & Paper set right on the floor (and I just want to assure every one of you right now that I am in no way imagining some interdimensional monster with a fishing rod’s line attached to that thing, just waiting for the moment one of you thinks to grab it).

But Konrad detects no Magic from any of it, ensuring that everything is above board and A-OK. He unrolls the parchment under Steve’s wondrous Ring of Light to-- wait, first he’s gotta break the winged Dragon seal made of pretty black wax – ok, now he unrolls the parchment under Steve’s wondrous ring of light, to read:

Greetings, O Champions of Dust!

There is no need to waste one of your identification spells on the bottle: it is an anti-poison, and there should be enough for each of you. You'll need it for the battle ahead, but keep in mind that it lasts only for one hour.

Also, be very careful. The enemy you are about to face is very powerful. It is immune to fire and resistant to cold, and its aura of fear can overwhelm even the most courageous heroes. Unfortunately, you are the only people on your world who can stop him from bringing his master's armies through the portal. If you tarry, I fear thousands will die.

I'll be cheering for you!

M

"Wait, what did it say?”

"Look like someone is helping us.”

Hey, I got an idea! How about i drop a really polite letter in Shadowstep for the Heroes of the Elements, going on about how this bottle full of rat poison is gonna render them immune to the evil Dark Lord planning their demise! It’s ok, don’t even bother wasting a scan on this thing that landed out of nowhere, trust me bro!

Seriously, how stupid does Mr M think we a—ARE YOU RETARDED!? Are you people seriously drinking the fucking potion from another world without even checking it first because some letter told you to!? Amber, sweetie, I know you’re too smart to get peer pressured into this shi— Fluffle, stop her! What the fuck, does the Shroud have its own kind of Madness!? Am I the only one here who’s not crazy!?

"I've just got a hunch that we'll need it.”

"Ugh. More weird shit...”

"Blergh! That is foul!”

"This fucking day…”

Yeah ok no, I’m uh… yeah I’m out. I’m out, i need a break. I’m just… these people just broke my mind just now, I’m outta here. Bye.

Posts : 3812 Join date : 2017-05-16

So um, umm….. the Doomies drink from the ^{"JUST FUCKING DRANK IT!!”} um the bottle, and… and it-it actually tastes really bad, like yucky, but aside from that everyone feels fine, so Fluffe says…

"Hmm. It looks like we can trust whoever sent this to us. I wonder where they are…”

"Let’s hurry up and close these things.”

"The only portals open are the ones that lead into that red abyss, so I'm not entirely sure.”

"You said you felt the Shroud though, right?”

"Yeah.”

"Hmm…”

"Well, like the letter said, it's all up to us, eh? Come on, Steve.”

So Fluffle and the Magic people go one way and the rest of us stay behind to deal with this portal here in case more Bat-Monkeys come out. Steve and Konrad go in through the kitchen, trying really hard to be quiet, but then Steve bumps into a table and a bag of flour falls to the ground. It doesn’t make a lot of noise but ^{"Quick guys, drink that one too!”} I’m sorry, j-just a second... ^"OW!!”

So the bag of flour doesn’t make a lot of noise, but you can still hear it pretty well in the quiet. But that’s when Steve and Konrad take notice of the commotion outside, with all the people who have gathered and started talking pretty loudly. Konrad and Steve could only make out a few words, but it seemed people were getting very worried about the monsters that had just appeared ^{“Yeah, I guess a giant snake kinda tends to sta—ok, ok.”}. Whatever fight happened here might well spill to the bystanders if it dragged on too long.

"Steve, you’ll want to avoid using Fire or Frost Magic.”

"No worries, I’ll huck dirt at it!”

The three of them finally enter the tavern, and right up against the north wall is this big… BIG portal! Like, all the way to the ceiling! A beyond it is the same c-cth ^{“Cthonian”} Cthonian landscape as before but this time they see something really big off in the distance. I-I mean, not Kraken big but still twice as big as a Kaja big! Big as in, um… height ^{“stature”} stature! Not as in, uh… ^{“it wouldn’t be able to walk”} right.

THIS IS NOT HERE:

"Fluffle, can you get Sunny over here?”

"Just Sunny?”

"Get everybody.”

After they all whisper, Fluffle takes off.

Me, my Summoner and Mihai ^{"Hah!” "(˵◡‿◡⑅)”} were guarding the portal back in the infirmary – Mihai was trying to close it, since he didn’t know when they’d start – when Fluffle shows up.

"We need your help! There's a huge monster! HUGE!”

Mihai drops what he’d doing and runs very fast up to the tavern! He finds Konrad and Steve trying to hide behind the counter.

"We’re back!” – Fluffle whispers.

Lucky for them, the monster is at least, um… ^{"Say around fifty feet.”} Fifty Feet away from them! It’s talking in these gravelly harsh words to these tiny – are those Bat-Monkeys!?

"It notice you?”

"I don’t believe so.”

So, while they figure out what to do, Mihai has an idea!

DON'T CLICK:

And so Broody boy decides that out of all the shit he could pull, all the surprise attackery he could come up with, every and all ambush using the Veil Shroud Bender that he could conjure up, he decides that the winning strategy is to walk up and stand there.

I wish I was making that up, he just walks up and stands there! In plain sight, for all the Bat-Monkeys and the Big Brood Mother or whatever that thing is to see. I mean, it took balls, and even though I’m starting to fear his brain cell may have been compromised by whatever that draught was, I guess this can’t be any stupider than having drunk it in the first place.

So the Bat-Monkeys are the first to catch sight of Broody Boy, and they get all bitchy about it, screeching and gesturing and fidgeting and all that crap – and this is when I have to start to grudgingly concede that his plan may not be all that stupid after all, because when the Brood Mother turns to face him, he signals his minions to pipe down and walks up to Mihai alone.

Meanwhile, Fluffle and Steve and Konrad are getting ready for some devious shit of their own while Amber and Sunny get their game face on, but it’s not until Brood Mother finally crosses the portal that they all realize the bastard’s true weight class – all 12 Feet by 800 Pounds of it (screw your Metrics, I’m an Imperial). The thing just plain towers above Mihai like he’s some little broody boy lost in the tavern, and you can tell it’s not rattled at all when it finally starts talking – again, in Imperial!

"Not running away?”

Damn, I want a voice like that.

"Why should i?”

"The others did.”

His right hand holds a mace about as big as Mihai is. Then the big bastard’s maw curls into a grin and he adds – "Your sword, it is powerful. Does your might match it?”

Broody boy cocks his head – "One way to find out.”

"Come then, Mortals.”

Hot damn, boy, you needn’t tell him twice. Mihai draws his big hunk of magical iron as the air around it condenses. Then his left hand joins the grip, and just as he’s readying to strike, the sword shifts into Thunderglass mode and down swings the Mortal!

"GO!”

Aaaand… I’m not gonna make fun of him, he scores a solid cut on the bastard but it doesn’t even make him grunt. Mihai follows up with a second swing, but Thunderglass only meets metal this time. Turns out you don’t have to be very fast to block an attack when your weapon is pretty much the size of your opponent.

Mihai scoffs in frustration, but he knew from the get-go what his job was. And that’s when Konrad makes his move. He starts by casting a pretty good level Scan on the thing to get to know it a little better.

Turns out Brood Mother is about as strong as you’d expect from an eight-hundred pound wall of red muscle. You can forget about fire or poison, but it’s oddly resistant to cold too – just like the letter said ^"Huh!”, and never mind trying to hurt it with anything but a Magical Weapon – but this right here, this is where Big Red just cheats his balls off. So Magic is limited to a few elements, you gotta go in with a magical weapon if you go in close at all and then this piece of filth just passively projects this mind-altering fear aura that hits right where most close combat fighters are softest! Fucker’s just a walking hulking exploit engine, can you believe that shit!?

Oh and it can cast, it’s resistant against debuff spells (this is ridiculous), its teeth are poisonous and the mace does burn damage, so watch out.

"Oof, you’re a big guy.” – yeah, no shit.

But Konrad, he’s not bad for a Mortal either, and it’s not like he stepped into this thing unprepared. The Scan was just him saying hello, and now comes the love tap when he casts his oldie but goodie, Mr Curse!

Remember me saying the thing was resistant to altering Magic? Well not resistant enough, boys, because it goes in just right through that chink in the armor and shuts down his casting!

"Oh boy. It had a special firebombing ability up its sleeve, but it won't be able to do that for over half a minute now. Make it count.”

Oh trust me, you can fight a war in thirty seconds if you go all out – which Fluffle the Fluffle doesn’t hesitate to do when he puts the Haste on Steve! Now this is a tiny Haste, won’t last him more than a couple seconds, but Stevie… oh, wonder boy doesn’t need any more.

He charges up two golden power surges like the ones Zelk did against Spider-Face, only he’s not going for the terrain or try to bypass some barrier, no no no no, Stevie goes for the direct hit! The ground just cracks open under Big Red and up shoots a piece of Magical boulder like a wrecking ball! Fucker feels that, guaranteed, but that’s before the boulder splits and up shoots a wall of spikes that pierce the bastard so hard, its head hits the ceiling as it screams in pain.

Its eyes dart at Steve all fiery, before Amber takes aim and shoots for the head. The bolt would have landed a solid hit if not for the thick hide, causing it to graze an inch off its right eye. This really pisses it off, but it distracts the bastard from our man Théo charging in from the side with his big spiked shield for his ultra-secret technique, the Grand Body-blow of Men! Big Red doesn’t notice him in time to brace, and the charge hits straight against the side of its tensor muscle, knocking the fucker off balance and sending it crashing into the ground! Big man Théo did that shit! ALPHA-STRIKE, BITCH!

Théo follows up with another bash, Sunny Bunny strolls into the tavern, jumps over the counter and blasts the bastard right in the face with her power of Sunshine ^"YEAH!”!

Just as the bastard is probably thinking it wasn’t such a good idea to get cocky – and looks behind himself toward the Portal to signal his little minion bitches to come a-running, Theo maneuvers himself into a flanking position for his followup, but then…

I-I want to apologize for whatever Diskret School intellectual dipshit decided to call this thing ‘Willpower’, it wasn’t my idea and it’s such an insult to have frontline troops be derided as having a weaker will than a squishy caster, it breaks my mind (you see where this is going, don’t you).

Aaaaand so, about that cheat-your-balls-off aura that sends close combat fighters running away like bitches despite themselves? Yeah, so just as Mihai is raising his sword to literally cut the motherfucker down to size, this sick wave just dirties through him like a gush of sewer sludge, and just – I felt it, man – just makes his chest start to constrict and all his muscles just freeze over! And the Big Red Bastard, he doesn’t look any different as he starts to rise to his feet but from his eyes it’s like staring the gaping maw of terror as it opens up to chomp down on you. Broody Boy tries to fight it, he brings down Thunderglass with all the strength he can muster but he can’t put in the power and the fucking monster has no trouble blocking it.

It doesn’t waste any time, and brings its freaking massive claw down on Mihai who can’t even get his head straight enough to get out of the way. The hand is not big enough to grip him all the way around the chest, but the nails crush and dig through into his ribcage, as the fucker lifts him in the air right into his open jaws. It’s only by a hair’s breadth that Mihai manages to struggle through the pain and jerk his head out of the way at the last moment, but the shoulder is just meaty enough for Big Red to sink his teeth into instead – and boy, does that poison begin to work in a hurry.

Fine I’ll take the hit. Color me dumbass, I was wrong about not drinking bottles from strangers that just drop on the floor – this one happened to save his life. Mihai’s shoulder starts to burn, but it’s short-lived as the counteragent does its job just as fast, leaving only the searing pain of having his whole left side crushed and skewered by giant rows of teeth and claws.

Theo also got it bad from the fear wave, which isn’t helped any by seeing Mihai dangle from the fucker’s mouth as it looks straight at him. Big Red backswings the mace at Théo, but the Human Panzer manages to raise his shield and brace himself against the mountain of iron that crashes against him and rings though every bone in his body with so much force that it’s only a second later that he’s able to process the pain, though that too is soon overwhelmed as the bastard swivels its body into a massive tail swipe that follows up the first attack and spikes right into his gut, as the struggling Broody Boy dangles like a ragdoll in Big Red’s teeth before he swivels his head and spits Mihai out, sending him hurtling across the floor.

Broody Boy’s head is a full two seconds behind all that just happened as it struggles to get its bearings, but before he can even process up from down, his body is already staggering away like a bitch.

In the same motion, Big Red rips his tail right through what’s left of Théo’s abdomen, sending blood gushing and splashing all across the floor. It would have been seconds away from dying of shock or blood loss – take your pick, but Amber pulls out her wand and tags him with a heal that seals the wound just in the nick of time.

But don’t worry, guys, it gets so much better! Remember all those Bat-Monkeys that were on standby before? Look at them all flying in to join the fun! What’s that, like 20 of them? Yeah, we’re gonna have ourselves a party soon!

Stevie the Steve however loses zero focus as he charges another Magical wave of Wreck-Your-Shit and sends it hurtling through the ground until it erupts again right under Big Red’s feet again. The Haste had worn off, but I guess the spikes this time really do tear him a new asshole because the fucker screams in pain as blood pours out like someone just opened a big vintage barrel of Sulphuric Red.

The Bat-Monkeys rush along their onward flight like a swarm of arrows, but through the gateway they happen to see this glinting flash of light that, before they know it, shoots through the portal and shreds right through them like paper ^{"Eat that, lickspittles!!”}!

Only a few survive the ravaging and keep on darting toward their master like nothing happened (points for tenacity, for sure).

Sunny Bunny steps in right next to Konrad, who managed to withstand the fear aura a whole lot better than his magically-impaired comrades. The Red Mage sees enough of an opening to charge right in on its left flank, Sunny decides to mirror and take the right. The girl has no illusions about withstanding that fear aura for long, but so long as one of them strikes one clean solid hit, it won’t matter.

Big Red growls at them, and they spring forward in response. The big bastard sweeps its humongous mace from the right, right at Sunshine Girl. Sunny tightens her trajectory and spins into a swing at Big Red’s weapon hand, Umbraglint and Thunderglint ring through the air as they home in on their mark, only to hit iron by a hair’s breadth as for a moment the Dark Lightning from the twin blades’ power crackles and spatters against the mace’s Fire shaft. They lock in struggle for a second, but in the end, herself and those swords just don’t have the mass. A big flash erupts, sending Big Red’s mace recoiling back, and Sunny hurtling across the floor, crashing through a few chairs and a table that save her from hitting the wall straight on.

Big Red however doesn’t have time to gloat, as in that very second Konrad dashes in and strikes true, slicing his sword right through its lower left abdomen. The monster staggers and growls and gets really angry or desperate or both, he swings the mace at Konrad with murder in his eyes. Red Mage man isn’t a walking bank vault like Théo, he tries to brace himself but the weapon crashes against him like a wall of iron and jerks him up almost to the ceiling before the tail whips up at him and skewers him through the gut, as Big Red then grabs him and snaps its jaws open at him, ready to chomp down. Konrad can smell the sulfur and feel the heat as the maw closes down on his head. The fucking monster is so blind with rage, it doesn’t even process the ground cracking under its feet again before it erupts in another row of spikes that this time shred right through it, knocking Konrad free as Big Red topples back past the portal and dies on the ashen rock.

--

Back at the warehouse, it’s actually amazing the whole place isn’t on fire yet. Those barrels packed a punch but they were dry blasts, though a few flames do need snuffing out to before they really get out of hand.

I scamper back to my feet, surprisingly unscathed after a blast that powerful, though my ears are ringing a bit (Do I have functioning ears, or is it a Magic thing? I never bothered looking it up). I check that Zelk is all there too, though coughing a bit.

"You alright!?”

"Yeah. You?”

"Bit of ringing in my ears. Did you just brute-force that?”

"More or less, it took a bit educated guessing.”

"Nice job!” – I commend wholeheartedly – "Trying to think up something funny to say about not giving me a warning.”

Zelk nods – "You let me know.”

"I wi--”

And then I stop. And Zelk’s jaw drops at about the same moment as mine, because even though the fire and the smoke haven’t cleared, I can sense the Magic coming from within them clear as day. And that’s when I turn around and notice the shimmer, right in the center of the blast where the fire’s burning, this dome flickering, reflecting the flames around it and a couple hues of green and pink – doesn’t matter. And I sense a major migraine coming on.

The smoke clears a bit, enough for me to notice two bright red dots around the same height someone’s eyes would be. The monsters all lie charred and blackened and dead, except Barbie who struggles to get up but only gets as far as the knees, all battered and burned, blood pouring out of every hole in its head. I think to end its misery before I catch the curvy silhouette of Spider-Face, before the haze clears enough for me to see the rest of her, standing turned on her side, looking back at us unperturbed – even more than she was before, with this look in her eyes of… pity? Something looks like it’s wrapped around her bare back, this… cloak of some kind – a hand, resting a little above her waist. Her own arm is resting against something still shrouded by the smoke, around chest-high. The picture paints itself at this point as the smoke clears to reveal what it is that just swooped in to make our day even more miserable.

HELLO:

The dome still flickers around them for a few more seconds until it fades, the smole clears enough for me to see the ground underneath them totally intact. Barbie stumbles and keels over in agony dragging itself over to its master. Skull Man barely notices – certainly doesn’t even look, as the little flames he has for eyes seem trained on us – as he slowly extends his finger over to Barbie now almost clinging to his robe. And then the finger touches its head.

I have no idea just what that barbed bastard was, but I don’t think I’d ever imagined it could quite scream like that as its flesh crumples and rots, its eyeballs sink into their sockets as they dry up and I see the thing turn into a husk right in front of me as it falls dead on the floor.

"Wow, I can’t say I’ve ever made an entrance quite like that, but then again I don’t remember most of my tenure as Dark Lord of Planet Smirk over here! You guys looking to buy realestate? I know there’s this bar over by the harbor that rents rooms for the night for couples that get a little tipsy – I’ve never been there myself but my temp Summoner’s been known to frequent now and then! That tickle your fancy?”

It’s only when I finish saying that, that I realize those pictures are coming into my head a little too unbidden. Mihai’s memories that got stuck in my head, Villevielle, a city called Highwind, this cute apartment with a view to the park, and… it’s almost like there’s something in my magical head trying to worm its way through my thoughts. Is this Mr Skull over there?

I mean, certainly rounds out the creepy factor and lets me know what I’m up against but I can only be so freaked out when I’ve been literally taken over by an Elemental before and forced to fight my friends, and that’s when I wasn’t double-Orbed.

"I’m going to ask you to stop that now.”

Ah, Freeze the Fairy all professional in the face of mind invasion as she lights up a fireball. Come to think of it, this isn’t her first time dealing with this crap either. I feel like moral support is in order, so I dark up a Deadspike aimed right at Mr Skull’s skull.

"What the lady said.”

Skull and Spider don’t seem all that perturbed. I can’t tell what the bony bastard is thinking and Spider-Face only looks between me and Zelk with some mild interest, though I think I see her eyes wander a little when the looks at her. Is she checking her out? That would make Freeze the Fairy the first Osprey girl to be leered at by an alien, but then I realize something as I curse my own stupid.

I snap a look behind me, and thank you Drill Sgt Ermey for drilling this into my head in basic or I’d have been far too late – "SIX!”

Zelk turns around on sheer muscle memory (we DO have the same training!). I should have been amazed at how Giant Man-Spider managed to survive the thrashing we gave it back in the corridor, but it’s a good thing Special Forces Girl didn’t stop to ponder it as the eight-legged bastard was already leaping through the air at her.

Zelk throws her fireball on reflex, blasting the fucker backwards, crashing it onto the floor screeching and wriggling and burning, only to get up and shamble every which way as it crashes into everything, screaming. Someone’s gotta put that thing out of its misery, but I realize too late that it won’t be me.

I hear the hiss, and I barely have time to turn around before the thing lunges at me. Grabs my spell arm first, causing a perfectly good flame to snuff out, but it’s the hollow shriveled corpse-like face that really shocks me.

"Barbie, is that you!?”

Is Mr Skull some kind of necromancer? Cause that would explain my ol’ barbed pal here coming back to life. I mean, the empty eye sockets and dried up shriveled flesh hanging from bone doesn’t look healthy but doesn’t make it any less of a looker than before either. To make matters cuter, that’s some serious grip it’s got on my arm right now. I throw a punch with my free hand, it grabs it too. I pull back and ram my forehead into its nose, but it doesn’t even have one anymore for me to break, and all I hit is bone. And judging by how unfazed it is,I guess pain doesn’t even process for it anymore – well it does for me!

Can’t punch, headbutting won’t do a thing. Well, the fucker’s legs are still on the ground, aren’t they? They sure seem to be when I kick down into its knee and it immediately grunts and stumbles. I grab hold of its arms now, twist the bastard and shove it off me. Soon as I do, fireball crashes right into the thing, courtesy of Freeze the Fairy – I was just joking about her thing for fire, but I’ll take it!

The flames don’t burn long on that kind of dead tissue, though. I’m sure it must’ve done damage, but the thing doesn’t really seem to care about burning, as it scrambles back to its feet and stares right at me. It’s ok Barbie, Dark Lord’s got just the thing for a bad case of the undeath – think I as I light up another Deadspike, but once again I was really paying attention to the wrong thing,

Spider-Face doesn’t even bother to unsnuggle from Mr Skull’s grasp as she raises her arm at us – maybe that’s why I didn’t notice till it was too late – and a twisted wave of Magic dirties right through me.

I hear Zelk behind me scoff in frustration as I feel my Magic getting all tangled up by what feels really similar to a Silence spell. Flaming Barbie wastes no time renewing its assault on me, so I can’t really afford to pay attention to Mr Skull’s bony hand sliding down and off Spider-Face’s back, her finally turning toward as she unsheathes something shiny from a slit in her gown and taking one step forward before she zips right past me.

I punch Barbie hard in the face and turn right around to try and reach Zelk, but I know I should have known better when I feel a burning claw stab right through my side!

It’s a good thing I don’t have an actual liver but it hurts as if I did. I grab the arm and try to get the thing off me again, but it’s stronger now than it was before, and brings its other hand up to my face and yanks back. I can hear and feel and smell its breath (ugh), as I start to hear this whisper in my mind coming from somewhere.

The catch to being barbed all over though, is that there’s no lack of handholds for when you want to reach up, grab the bastard’s head and wrench down! I’d hoped to rip something off, but i’m just fine with the thing losing balance, crying out and getting flung over the shoulder, head-first onto the ground, with this thwack and crack that – despite this damn whisper getting louder – sound like music to my ears right about now. But of course, it’s not breaking its neck that gonna kill this thing twice, no no no no, that’s gonna take a little more personal attention, which I’m happy to provide! Anything for my ol’ pal Barbie after all! If only someone would please shut that whisper up!!

I’m not kidding, I’m feeling sicker every second that thing goes on. – "Hey Skullfucker, would you shut up for a sec--” – Barbie grabs my foot – "I’m not talking to you!!” – and I stomp down. But that’s when the murmur in my head finally clicks.

In an instant, this freezing jolt shoots down my spine, all the way to my toes. My sight blurs for a second, and this numbness hits me right in the head. I really wanted to bring my foot down harder to crush this bastard’s head once and for all, but my body just suddenly won’t move. Every time I try, this prickling hits me like I’m trying to move against a stack of needles!

Barbie takes his time getting up, but once it does, I know it knows I’m defenseless. It snakes its arms forward toward me as I smell its fucking breath again, and the hissing reaches this weird low pitch as its grip tightens on my head.

Spider-Face darts at Zelk with this thin shiny… ^{"Stilletto”} stiletto in her right hand. Zelk doesn’t waste time and draws her own dagger, pulling it back as she steps into the white-haired lady’s charge! The stiletto thrusts in, Zelk sidesteps it and grabs Spider-Face’s arm, but it’s a trap! Soon as she grabs it, her skin starts sweating this yellow-green liquid that burns Zelk’s hand as soon as she touches it! She lets go immediately and follows up with a slash at Spider-Face’s throat, but she bends over backwards and avoids it! She springs back upright in a snap, and her hair shoots forward at Zelk like a whip! Zelk sways to the side but the hair latches into her knife arm like a spider web and wraps all around it and the blade. Spider-Face steps in with another thrust at Zelk’s flank but Zelk yanks her right arm back and the web pulls at Spider-Face’s head and knocks her off balance!

The webbing detaches from Spider-Face immediately – and you’d never know it came from that smooth and silky white hair – but Zelk doesn’t waste any time and lands a kick at Spider-Face’s stomach! It connects, and she hunches over in a gasp. Her arm and dagger are still bound by the webbing, but Zelk follows up with a downward stab anyway. Her arm is too slow in that state though, and Spider Face grabs and twists it down. Instead of losing balance, Zelk cartwheels across to Spicer-Face’s back and lands a kick to the back of her knee, sending her to the floor. She pulls and yanks her head back, but Spider-Face’s hair tangles around her left arm now! But Zelk doesn’t miss a beat, grabs tight onto Spider-Face’s head and bashes it against the wall! Once and twice and… the hair webbing comes loose again and Spider-Face slips down, only for Zelk to hurt her hand punching it against the wall – worse, she’s now webbed on both hands! Spider-face falls to her knees, but recovers and counters with a swipe at Zelk’s side. Zelk Twists to avoid it, but her waist is still grazed by it. Spider-Face rises to her feet and followus up with another stab, at Zelk’s chest, but she raises her left arm to catch it! The stiletto grazes against the webbing, finally getting stuck on the threads. She tries to wrench her stilletto out, but Zelk twists and knees the bad lady in the stomach. Almost in response, the webbing on her arm suddenly comes loose, along with the weapon, and Spider-Face tries to use the surprise to her advantage by stabbing down but Zelk is already following up with her right arm – it’s still webbed but doesn’t stop her from punching Spider-Face in the… face! Spider-Face reels and stumbles backward, and Zelk kicks her in the chest this time, sending her to the ground! But then she loses her balance and stumbles as well.

It only now starts to hit her, the blood-like reddening and the burning pain on her left hand that grabbed Spider-Face’s arm, and on her left side that got grazed by the stiletto. This had to be poison. She struggles to stay on her feet, but it must be spreading through her body now because of all the exertion and she stumbles to her knees.

Spider-Face rises, slowly but surely. She stares at Zelk, who’s barely managing not to collapse, but instead of attacking she lets out this weird magical aura, a little similar to a summoning but… so much creepier. And that’s when Zelk hears the skittering.

From the darkness behind the evil lady, a swarm of tiny figures emerges, crawling along the ground. They’re much more normal-sized than the giant ones they’d faced so far but they’re still as big and horrifying as I’ve seen in the books, with their hairy legs flitting and their fangs dripping venom and all of them flooding toward Zelk! There’s dozens of them! Zelk, get out!

But Zelk doesn’t show any fear. She reaches into her tunic and pulls out this shiny mirror ball she’d been saving. She struggles a little but eventually tightens her grip around it enough to crush it, and out pours the Magic!

The Esuna spell washes through her as the red in her hand subsides and the color comes back to her cheeks! Zelks holds out her left hand and this big burning fireball erupts above it as she pulls it back and hurls to scatter in front of her, incinerating every spider trying to touch her without permission! They scatter and scream, and Spider-Face is all shocked and livid! She starts to gather more magic, but doesn’t move fast enough while Zelk is still in her momentum and summons this huge lightning bolt down on her head!

Spider Face jerks and screams and drops her weapon and drops to her knees, rasping for air and spitting blood. Zelk lights up another spell, maybe for what we in Villevielle call the coup de grace, but then something far off catches her eye, the sight of Smirk being battered by this barbed zombie... thing.

She immediately switches targets and takes aim for a long cast, as she slides her foot forward into a sinker stance, but that’s when she hears heavy skittering barreling at her from the darkness, along with this ear-piercing screech before the large figure of the Giant Man-Spider emerges as it charges at her.

So as I’m being ‘battered’(though my air quotes notwithstanding, having my head slammed against the warehouse support pillar was NOT fun) I hear this insanely low smoky voice coming from behind Barbie. Asshole stops mid-swing and looks behind itself at its master, finally stepping aside – though not without the decency to let go of my head as it props me up for… whatever Skull Man has in mind. And Mind is the operative word, it seems, as I guess it figured it could finally read mine after it softened me up? Well that’s tough shit, Skullfucker, I got a Jacob-grade AND a Breeze-grade Orb inside Mihai’s head right now.

"Oh, I think you almost had it that time!” – I can finally get through the paralysis enough to at least jabber a bit. Only a little more… just a little more… – "Keep it up Skully, I believe in you!”

I guess it was something I said because the presence trying to peek inside gets a lot more aggressive, to the point It gets so noisy up in there I almost feel it ringing, but in the end we all know how that song and dance goes, and the angry frustration I feel inside my head right now makes me all warm and fuzzy.

But then Skullface looks at me all menacing, and I start hearing the damn whisper again in my head– no, this time he’s actually saying it, projecting his voice through Magic same as me. I can’t make head nor tail of the freaking word salad, but i can feel it creeping down my spine. It doesn’t feel like the same pins and needles as before, this is more like frozen stakes being driven into my bones while every little wisp in my body starts to break down. If that last Magic Word got me paralyzed, this one… whatever is coming, I don’t think i’ll live through it.

I can feel all the way up to the tips of my fingers again, but this creeping entropy keeps spreading and I don’t think i can muster the strength to break through Barbie’s grip before Skullfucker finishes reciting his spell. I have to tell Zelk, yell at her to run and meet up with Mihai and the boys, maybe then… then……………

Then I hear the ground crack next to me, and this huge spike shoots up and tears at Barbie like a big sharp rock crashing against a barbed undead ghoul-lizard, sending it screaming into the air.

I don’t have time to admire it, though. I roar myself out of this damn stupor and lunge at Skuller while he’s distracted. I lurch my arm forward at his head, hoping for something I can latch onto. My fingers find teeth.

Normally that’d be a problem, but I tighten my grip like I want to crush it and I pull and wrench at that jaw like I’m trying to rip out the door to the liquor cabinet. I can tell the bastard hasn’t had to deal with anything closing the gap very often, as it flails and thrashes and waves its arms about trying to either grab me or cast something, I can’t tell. It shoots one hand at my face, I manage to grab it before it can do to me what it did to Barbie. I kick up my right foot against its chest for leverage and I yank back until I start to feel bone starting to break. I’ve almost ripped off the jaw entirely when his finger happens to find my side.

Today’s word is definitely Pain. Whatever it is, that freaking digit sends a jolt through me so powerful, I flicker in and out for a moment and it’s a wonder how I kept enough integrity to not scatter into wisps right then and there, but I manage to keep my footing and land a kick to its head that sends it reeling back… for a second.

Fucker recovers and glares right at me, with his jaw half hanging to one side. Whatever it’s gonna do, I don’t have it in me to keep this up much longer. And that’s when I see the little red flames in its eyes burn brighter.

If I hadn’t jumped to the side immediately, I would have been bisected. The two red beams from Skull’s eyes graze my neck as I dive behind one of the stacks – it burns like a hot iron. I land into a roll, scamper to my feet and keep running as the beams fire up again, cutting right through the stacks’ metal supports as they chase me before i jump onto one of the cargo rows above me. The structure though, it's too unstable to hold me as it wobbles all over, dropping expensive snacks, whole bottles of liquor and cigar boxes to break open on the floor, and another drum full of that shatterclay spills open! What the fuck are they keeping food and booze next to explo— ugh no, I got bigger things to worry about. If only i could cast yet…

I jump to the adjacent stack, but another beam shoots from below and cuts right up at me. Somehow I jump away, but my foot gets caught on a loose girder, I lose my balance and fall to the ground on my side. I roll out of the way, expecting a third volley, but what I see instead is this thing dropping in from above. It takes a second for me to realize it’s fucking Barbie jumping down on me!

The sound of struggle from behind one of the stacks should have told the Skeleton Man roughly where to aim next, but the flashes of fire and lightning blasting off in the distance catch his… eye? It might have expected Spider-Face to have finished Zelk already – evil people in books usually suffer from that kind of hubris, so he might have been putting on his surprise face. Maybe he was trying to discern who was fighting who right now, or maybe aiming his eye beams wasn’t so easy at that distance in the low light, or maybe he just wanted to wait and see what would happen – I really doubt he cared about his barbed zombie flunky, though he seemed kind of fond of the lady.

I don’t really know, these visitors from other worlds are kind of strange to me (though the ones from the sheep planet were nice). But out from one of the stacks, something flies to the air at Mr Skull Man. He whips his hand and grabs it easily, only to realize it’s the severed head of Zombie Barbie!

It looks right at him with its empty eye sockets, and stuck in its mouth is something long with its tip lit ablaze – is that a…a cigar? It’s not stuck between the teeth, those are hanging loose and unable to bite. Instead, it’s stuck in this substance… is it that shattering clay that spilled from the drum before?

Mr Skull must have sensed the little Magic sequence being sent through the air, but he must not have associated it with the thing in his hand in time. Either way, the shattering stuff lights up for a second, before the Zombie’s head explodes in his hand!

It’s not a very powerful explosion compared to what a full drum can do, but it stull blasts his left hand to bits and cracks the left side of his face so one of his eyes goes out.

Skull Man is furious!, He lashes out with his remaining eye beam at where the head came from. Then to the left of it, the right of it, he cuts through every piece of the three story high cargo stack in front of him, until… until the whole thing comes crashing down.

The stack buckles and grinds and you can hear the twisting metal and snapping bolts and it topples and falls right on top of Skull Man! It casts some spell, and its body begins to vanish but then this swirl of magic black nails comes flying down from above!

"IT’S WORKING AGAIN!!”

The spell hits Skull Man and binds him in place! It tries harder to will itself away but it’s not fast enough! The heavy stack crashes down right on top of it with this huge loud smash that thunders across the whole warehouse! Dust kicks up and there’s metal in shambles everywhere.

Part of the structure grinds against the still active Portal, and you can hear the metal scraping against the swirling energy as all the beams and girders slide and scrape off each other, falling down with a clang. A few of them slip past the portal, into those dark catacombs from that other world far away.

For a moment, that’s all that can be heard in that space, but then this low smoky whispering can be heard from within the wreckage, getting louder and angrier, until a single red beam shoots up into the air, cutting through the fallen metal every which way before the section is blown apart by some magical force. Skull Man rises from among the debris, looking and sounding very angry as its whispering turns into something that sounds more like an angry rant. I don’t know what it’s saying, but I don’t think I’d want it anywhere near me.

"I KNOW, RIGHT!?”

Rising from between some pieces of the ruined stack himself, Smirk doesn’t waste any time and dashes for Skull Man!

Skull Man turns in shock, and his eye lights up again in fury as Smirk whips his arm up at him. The Darkness swirls around his hand before blasting away at the red eye as the red beam goes off right as it's intercepted by the Dead Spike attack! They collide in this big explosion of bright red and black fireworks that sends pieces of death ray refracting every which way, cutting through whatever they touch. A sliver grazes Smirk's side, and he grunts in pain. As for Skull Man, he screams as he recoils from the blast that went off right next to his head!

Skull Man wails and stumbles backward, smoke pouring out of his remaining eye. But Smirk vaults over one last piece of debris and grabs him by the throat, clears the wreckage and bashes the undead sorcerer into the warehouse support pillar!

Look away, Bunny.

Motherfucker waves his finger about, trying to get me, I grab it and twist it and pin him to the wall with my knee, pull my right fist back and I slam it into the bastard’s skull so hard it bounces off the pillar behind it. I slug him again once, twice, four times, I lose count until I start to feel bits of bone stuck to my knuckles and its arm spazzing about same as the stump on the other end. What a mess.

I snap myself out of it as I hear the approaching screech of something big, eight-legged and with its ass on fire. The freaking giant man-spider, still alive, running at… not me, and not really running so much as shambling about in a panic, carrying this collapsed dark-blue skinned spider-faced chick on its shoulder as it scrambles for the portal in terror.

I step back, and Mr Bony slumps to the floor, unable to get up so much as just convulse as it tries to hold on to what’s left of its face, with its twitching hand and stump as little bits of bone keep falling off. Not gonna lie, even I was a little freaked out by it. But then I hear it.

"SSsssSssrrRRrrrrssssSsss… SsmMrrrRrrkkKkk….”

Voice sounds all deep and menacing in my head, like some booming growl I’m hearing down a tunnel.

"FfffFrrRzzZzz…tTHhh… FfaAeEerryYyyyy….”

"S’up.”

Something red and scorching hot flies past me and hits Skull Face right in the… Skull. It doesn’t have time to catch fire before what’s left of its head just bursts and its body falls to the floor. It still jerks with a twitch or two, but goes silent shortly after.

Zelk walks up, breathing hard but still standing. We both stare at the corpse for a minute while she catches her breath and I catch... my ‘breath’.

"You know, Mihai once fought this caster chick in Feuilledor – smoking hot, though she was this twisted sick slaver who liked to burn people real slow with this tiny flame from her finger. She had this fire whip too, nasty thing. Longer reach than a sword, and hurt like hell...”

"Ok…?”

"Point is, do you really only have that little dagger to fall back on?”

Freeze the Fairy gives me the eyebrow – "Yeah, I do. Steve took all the forks and spoons with him.”

--

Mihai’s hand balls into a fist and he punches himself in the head, in an effort to stop being a pussy.

Konrad attempts to connect with the Monkeybats, whether to establish trade relations or just give them a piece of his mind we’ll never know, for it is futile. Either way he can’t quite tell, mostly to the monstrous thunder crackle that makes itself heard from the other side of the portal. Looks like there’s a storm brewing as the whole landscape of Sulphur Paradise begins to rumble.

"Uh, guys?” – Amber points a shaky teenage finger at the hellscape – "What’s happening?”

It would appear, Ms Windscarf, as if thunder just crackled and the whole place began to shake. Look, more of it! And now the volcano is spewing out fireworks, candy and gumdrops, except it’s all lava! Good news though, I believe your three timespace wizard friends over there should be capable of getting to closing those portals already before we get pyroclasted, instead of gawking at it like a bunch of idiots!

"Let’s close this fucker. Move.”

Broody Boy finally has the brilliant idea of doing what I tell him. He’s just doing it in the wrong place though, seeing as Konrad’s been mangled all over, and any exertion associated with moving over to the infirmary to close the second portal could cause his organs to fall off.

"What a horrible day.”

"Look at that, the man just fell to his knee. It’s all he can do try and shut the portal from here. Have you no shame?”

"Ok, shut up already!”

"I’d hurry if I were you. As in, RUN! Just not, you know, like a bitch.”

Mihai runs like a bitch to the infirmary with Amber in tow, while Fluffle stays behind to sprinkle some Fairy Dust on Konrad. Once Mihai steps into the infirmary, he gets a view of the volcano almost as nice as the one he got from the tavern, except now there’s this really huge flock of birds things flying in to seek booze and medical treatment. Except when lightning flashes, he can tell the birds are actually this.

There’s about two dozen of them, each of which flying into the interdimensional orifice of their preference. Wanna fight Big Red times twenty four, guys? Maybe we can do one an hour if we decide to blow the whole Feuilledor thing, or you just take too long to close that crap!

Konrad decides he probably doesn’t and starts trying really super-duper hard to close the big hole already. This greatly upsets the giant flying oxen as they’ve been waiting a thousand years for a chance to show someone their scorching hospitality, but the boys join forces to let them know that no really, it’s ok.

Until alas, to the great regret of all of us, the fiery slabs of meat on wings ultimately fail to reach the most hotly contested tavern in Villevielle before the Space-Time Sphincter closes in on itself.

The Shroud is very pleased however, and decides to reward Steve with the power to make people vanish from this world at will, which he’ll be certain to use with the utmost reserve and discretion now commensurate to his person in all his future endeavors.