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300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 83 | "They are afraid, it's obvious" muttered Mervalos, looking at the low Greek triremes bobbing up and down on the waves like walnut shells, and then at their own heavy vessels with the raised rails and the dozens of marines on their decks. "We'll make one mouthful of them…"
"They are afraid, my lady."
"How can you be so sure of that, Diomedes?"
"They underestimated our power. Now that they are close to us, they have realized their mistake and they're stopping. What else could it be?"
"Only the mind of that cursed Themistocles knows" Artemisia answered her helmsman, her heart boiling at the thought of the Athenian's betrayal. He had made a fool of her and the emperor at the same time. Xerxes was famous for his rage and if there was no glorious victory after this, then she herself was sure to be one of the victims. "By Artemis, if we win and I get out alive, I'll tear him to pieces with my own hands," she swore to her protecting goddess.
In vain, because as everyone knows, the oaths of pride always give way before the commands of love. |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 84 | The Greek ships stayed still at the center of the straits, a position which is very difficult for a ship to hold without dropping its heavy anchor and with the wind hitting it from the side. The rowers did not pull the oars out of the water at all, but moved them back and forth in a short, rapid motion, their hands and shoulders numb from the uninterrupted effort.
"If we have to do this much longer, the men will be exhausted before we attack."
"Who told you we were going to attack?" Themistocles calmly answered his anxious petty officer.
"Well then what are we going to do?"
"Go backwards slowly… Softly… Without turning, stern first…"
His order was transmitted soundlessly through the little white cloths stretched at the sterns of the Greek fleet, in accordance with the plan Themistocles had laid out in the last war council they held before they sailed.
Very slowly the Greek ships started to row back again, towards Salamis. They were retreating, it was obvious that they were retreating. And without any coordination, giving the impression that they had been overcome by awe and terror. Exactly as Themistocles wanted.
"Are we leaving? Are we giving up?" asked the helmsman with his great oars raised.
"It is wise to known when and how to retreat" he answered him. "Isn't that what bulls do before they charge?"
The ill-organized retreat of the Greek fleet continued for about two hundred yards, until the ships had got back to the calm waters and slowed their pace.
That was the moment when the great horn and the drums were heard from the other side. The Persian ships had been ordered to attack by the emperor and their drummers began to give the rhythm to their rowers. The marines and archers took up battle position at the prows and the rails to the side. The captains raised and put on their armor and their helmets. The drummers quickened the pace and the black Phoenician ships lunged forward in pursuit of the terrified Greeks. |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 85 | "Avast and battle position!"
The white flags were taken down from the sterns and red ones were hung in their places. The Greek ships stopped abruptly and with the help of the helmsmen and the calm waters, they quickly drew up in a straight formation, one next to the other, with their rams pointing forward.
"Avast! Stay still again!"
Themistocles' order seemed at least paradoxical, since the enormous Phoenician ships were bearing down on them from the end of the straits at full speed, with their short, heavy rams tearing through the water. Everyone knew that standing still at the moment of clash and ramming could be fatal for a ship. It wouldn't have the speed to maneuver, and it wouldn't have built up the momentum to strike.
"Avast? Are you sure?" shouted Cimonas from the deck of the Aisia. "In a little while they'll hit us!"
"You're too much of an aristocrat to know the secrets of the sea… And it's time for you to learn… Avast!" Themistocles repeated with certainty, looking straight ahead and calculating the speed and the distance.
"May the god Poseidon help us…"
As the Persian ships continued relentlessly on course, the great biconvex bows on their decks were strung and hundreds of arrows were shot up almost vertically and in bursts, like a sudden summer storm. At that angle of shooting they would fall from a great height, killing the marines on the Greek decks as well as the unprotected rowers on the highest bench.
But that did not happen. The wind took the arrows and pushed them aside while they were still high in the air. At the same moment the Persian archers lost their footing and could not aim right, because the Persian ships had now reached the center of the straits, the point with the strongest wind.
As the wind blew through the black rigging and the curly-horned goats at the prows, the raised decks of the gigantic Phoenician ships changed from an advantage against the enemy to a disadvantage against the wind. With their high sides exposed to the strong wind they rose and fell uncontrollably, while at the same time leaning to the right.
The farther they sailed the more difficult it was to keep to their original course. And it was even more difficult to stay in formation. They started to turn in spite of all the will of their captains and the best efforts of their oarsmen. After a few minutes of exposure to the strong wind their rams were turned to the side and they drifted to windward. But in spite of their unusual and dangerous position, they did not change course. That would have looked like fear and retreat, and it was unthinkable to show fear under the eyes of the emperor, who was watching the attack from his throne. From the moment they received his order and started out, there was only one choice. Forward and only forward. That was what they did, hoping to cross the dangerous center of the straits as quickly as possible. Luckily the Greeks were panicking and terrified. And anyway, not even Ahura Mazda himself would be able to protect them when they were exposed like that.
Themistocles waited. He watched them and his heart felt like it was pounding on top of his metal armor. His plan had unfolded exactly as he wanted it to. Now the great moment had arrived. The moment that would decide everything.
When he saw the first Persian ships enter the smooth waters, he raised his hand high. Then he brought it to the side of his mouth. He waited one or two moments and then shouted in his stentorian voice.
"Full speed ahead! Attack speed!"
At the same instant blue cloths were raised on all the sterns of the Greek ships. From their decks sounded the piercing trumpets and pipes playing the martial hymn of the Greeks. The captains of the whole fleet gave the command to attack, while from the mouths of the rowers came the passionate verses:
Forward, children of Greece
set your country free, set your children free,
your wives, the temples of your ancestral gods,
the tombs of your ancestors
now the struggle is forever… |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | The Final Clash | Before the Artemis could get up to full speed, the Ischys, the ship of Ameinias, shot by them and plunged ahead. The Athenian captain stood in the stern and howled like a madman to urge on his rowers, his officers and his marines.
"Quickly! With power and speed!" shouted Themistocles, who did not want anyone else to have the honor of striking the first blow.
He didn't make it. The crew of the Ischys rowed paroxysmally, like a Dionysian troop in an ecstasy. He smiled faintly as the politician in him took over.
Inspire the people with your vision and let them lead the way, but keep them under control, he thought.
Anyway, the important thing was not one blow, but the triumph itself. No one could take that from him, since everyone knew that he had prepared for it for many years, patiently, insistently, sacrificing even his personal fortune for that goal.
While the Artemis sailed at full speed towards the scattered Phoenician ships, Themistocles turned his eyes to the west. There, at the end of the straits, the ships of Corinth appeared. They had turned their prows east again and were approaching relentlessly. Adeimantos had heard the pipes and the martial hymn and he was now returning to carry out every last detail of their planned flanking attack.
Everything was ready. The noose was closed, and now he only had to draw it tight around the Persian neck. Themistocles leaned forward again, trying to make out the prow with the great Phoenician goddess Astarte as its figurehead. The prow of the ship of Mervalos, the king of Phoenicia. He could not find it. The choppy sea, the strong wind and the Phoenician rowers who had been caught by surprise in the Greek's sudden attack, had turned the Persian formation into a flock of sheep just before being attacked by wolves.
He stopped searching. They were already coming up on the first Phoenician ship. Her prow was turned to the west, her keel at an angle, the ideal position for ramming. Her high deck shuddered dizzyingly from the side wind and most of the marines she carried were seasick. In spite of that, her size looked terrible as they approached. She was painted entirely in black, with a great winged fish as a figurehead and an enormous blood-red eye painted underneath it.
"Ramming speed, diekplou and helm to starboard!" yelled Themistocles.
The Artemis increased her speed as the distance with the enemy ship decreased to fifty yards.
"Ri – pa – pie! Ri – pa – pie!"
The demonic cry of the rowers, who increased their speed every time they raised their oars, sounded from end to end of the Artemis, drowning out everything else.
Except for the pandemonium coming from its starboard side. Ameinias' Ischys had mercilessly rammed her first victim and her men were passionately avenging the sacking and burning of their city by the Persians. First came a rhythmic crackling of snapping oars and gruesome cries from the rowers as their bones were crushed. Then, before the wailing faded away, came the thunderous crash of impact. The ram hit the undefended side of the Persian ship with terrible force and there was the sound of splintering wood and cracking joints, the cries of wounded men and cheers from the attackers.
"Glory be to Athena the Triumphant!" shouted Themistocles enthusiastically.
The Greek fleet's first ramming had been successful. It was a good omen. Everything seemed to be according to plan and proving the correctness of the prophecy of Eufrantides, the diviner, who had made sacrifices and libations before the battle and had declared that the will of the gods agreed with the plan of the Greeks.
"Ri – pa – pie! Ri – pa – pie!"
Harder.
Louder.
"Diekplous! Marines to the bow!" Themistocles had time to shout before the helmsman slammed the double oar to starboard and the Artemis turned abruptly, bringing her ram around to strike the exposed side of the enemy ship.
Above them the Persian marines ran feverishly carrying ropes and hooks. They understood what the Greek ship planned to do but their rowers did not have time to avoid it. The only solution left was tie the enemy ship to their own after the ramming. Then they could board it and capture it with spears and swords in a hand to hand combat, in which they would have the numerical advantage over the Greek marines. That was the only way to avoid sinking along with their ship.
"Ram!"
There was an unbelievable crash as the Artemis struck with all its force. The whole ship shook with the impact and there was a deafening sound of breaking wood as a huge hole was opened in the side of the Phoenician ship. The enemy ship rolled all the way to starboard, its mast almost touching the surface of the water. Half of the marines on deck lost their hold on the rails and fell into the wild sea.
"Back!"
The Athenian rowers immediately reversed the direction of their oars, trying to pull the Artemis out of its dangerous embrace with the enemy ship. The backwards movement after a clash is the most critical moment in the maneuver of ramming, and the most difficult. They had to detach their ship before it sank along with one that had been rammed, and also before the enemy had time to jump onto their decks.
While the petty officer passionately urged on his rowers, the Persian spearmen threw their thick ropes attached to hooks onto the Greek ship and tried to keep it in place.
"It was a crushing blow. Only half of the Persians are left. We can attack first and kill all of them" shouted the Artemis' lookout from the prow.
"No. Full speed back!"
Themistocles had explained everything in detail to the other Greek captains. They must not waste time boarding the enemy ships to take prisoners or trophies, but strike like lightning, like the bull that sinks its sharp horn into its opponent and retreats immediately. Their goal was to sink or immobilize as many enemy ships as they could as soon as possible, spreading panic and chaos through the immensely superior Persian fleet. The marines on the decks would be finished off by the raging sea, since it was impossible to swim in their heavy armor.
While the rowers fought to detach the Artemis, the Athenian marines tried to cut the enemy's ropes with axes, knives and swords and to throw the hooks away. A hail of stones fell on the deck and Persian arrows were shot at close range. Two marines and the piper of the Artemis fell writhing in pain, one with a crushed foot and the other two with arrows buried in their flesh.
Themistocles grabbed his shield and spear and ran towards the bow, calling all the men except the helmsman to come with him. If the Persians dared to board, they had to throw them back before they could set foot on the ship, because their numerical superiority might be fatal and victory might turn into defeat.
But it was not necessary. With an ear-piercing cry from the rowers and a sudden jolt, the ram came out and the Artemis was propelled rapidly backwards. Themistocles looked at the breach they had made and smiled in satisfaction. The added weight of the marines at the bow had sunk their ram eighteen inches below the surface of the water, so the breach was under the enemy ship's waterline. Now that their ram was no longer there, water poured into the gap. The Phoenician ship had no chance. In a few minutes it would sink with all its crew.
Themistocles turned on his pedestal in the stern and looked around to assess the situation, select the next victim and attack without delay. But it was not so easy. The sky had suddenly darkened, covered by thick clouds that slid across the heavens like his own rapid, agile ships. Beams of sun pierced the clouds in places, slicing the moist, dark air. They might be fighting in the kingdom of Poseidon but the scene resembled a landscape from the kingdom of Hades. That was a good sign, because the Persians would give it the worst possible interpretation. They worshipped the god of the sun. If it disappeared while they were fighting, their morale would suffer. Their confusion and panic would get worse.
"Full speed ahead!" he shouted when the Artemis had fully disengaged from the sinking Phoenician ship.
He continued to observe his surroundings. The Ischys of Ameinias was already headed towards another exposed enemy keel, while the Aisia of Cimonas was getting into position across from the exposed side of a Phoenician ship. Since they were on the right side of the formation, he could not make out any details farther on. The ships had broken their lines and were now engaged in fragmented, ship to ship combats, where individual initiative and decision played the decisive role, and where the free citizens of the Greek ships would have the greatest advantage against the passive slaves of the Persian ships.
Uproar and confusion. The water had sprung up into the air from the hundreds of clashes and a moist curtain like thick fog covered the field of battle. All that could be seen was the masts of hundreds of ships, looking like a forest, and the emblems on the few sails that were spread. The chaos and complete disorganization were strengthened by the thunder of ships crashing into each other and the lamentations of men who were being crushed together with their oars and their hulls.
"All according to plan…" murmured Themistocles in satisfaction, and turned his gaze back to the waters near him.
The Aisia had completed her maneuver and was going forward at ramming speed. The Phoenician ship was between his own ship and that of Cimonas. The heavy enemy ship was trying to turn to port to protect its vulnerable side from the attack of the Aisia, but that left its other side unprotected, open to the Artemis' ram. Themistocles decided without a second thought.
"Hard to starboard!" he shouted to his helmsman, while signaling the petty officer to increase the rhythm for the rowers.
The low Greek ship, easy to maneuver and light because of the small number of marines it carried on its deck, turned quickly and came into ramming position. Now the Phoenician ship was between two rams.
"Ram!" he shouted as soon as he saw Cimonas' ship increase its speed to attack.
The Artemis and the Aisia struck almost simultaneously. The Phoenician ship was raised several yards above the surface and then fell again with a crash, broken in the middle. The stern was separated from the bow and the two pieces detached violently, sending bloody parts of the bodies of marines and rowers flying through the air in all directions, crushed by the collision.
While the spearmen and the archers of the two Athenian ships finished off the few sailors that had survived the crash, Themistocles and Cimonas raised their fists triumphantly.
"Courage…" murmured Themistocles, justifiably pleased with himself. "We have courage, a soldier's most important weapon…" |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 87 | On the Cassiope, Artemisia was trying in vain to maneuver her ship into battle position. To port and starboard her other four ships were crowded, before her was the stern of a ship from Lycia and behind her the bow of another from Cyprus. If she rowed backward so as not to ram the ship in front of her, she was in danger of being rammed by the one behind her. The situation was hopeless and the only thing she could do was to keep a safe distance so as not to suffer damage without even being in the battle.
But that would not last long, and she knew it. The lookout high on the mast had informed her that the Greeks had sunk many ships of the first line and that they were putting pressure on the whole eastern side of the Persian formation. She looked back unconsciously toward the mountainside where the emperor sat on his throne, surrounded by his generals, his advisors and his mages.
"Foolish, by Artemis, foolish and incompetent in sea warfare. All these ships will cripple each other without the Greeks having to lift so much as a finger."
She climbed up to the curved ornament of the stern and tried to watch the course of the battle to the west, where the elite divisions of the Phoenicians were drawn up. If those managed to beat the Greek divisions across from them, the Greek formation would break and an empty space would be created, relieving the pressure on the center and the east side.
She could not make much out. The atmosphere created in the battle by dozens of clashing ships caused a haze that was impenetrable to human eyes. Also, the heavens were covered by black clouds and the clear morning light was lost. So she could not even see which Greek ships were battling in front of her. She hoped though, hoped with all the strength of her spirit, that they were Athenian. She wanted to find him in front of her. She wanted to make him pay for his betrayal. Themistocles. Cunning Themistocles. Devious Themistocles. Charming Themistocles.
She cursed herself because even now, even after his betrayal and the trap he had set for her, her heart still yearned for him. She was very young and she was a woman, but she was already a famous warlord. She was an amazon who did not hesitate to throw herself into the fire of battle. And she did it in the Greek way: not looking on from the rear and giving orders, but leading her troops and ships herself. And yet, when she was with Themistocles she still thought like a simple-minded woman, destined to melt with love and lose her head at the thought of a man.
"But whatever happens, we have something in common. That cannot change. Maybe that's why sometimes…"
She stopped her monolog, spat in disgust and got down from the stern. The heartbreaking cries of the Persians and the triumphant shouts of the Greeks were growing stronger and stronger. It was a sure sign that the Greek ships had broken the Persian front line at several points and were now approaching their second line. She had to take precautions before they came within ramming distance. She had to order her ships to take up a defensive position to repel the attack. But it was not at all easy to do that in these unbelievably crowed conditions.
"Raise the oars!" she shouted to the captains of the ships next to her, to gain space for the rowers to push the Cassiope forward as soon as she gave the order. "Stay like that and when my ship leaves, each of you in turn take up my position to extricate yourself and follow me. First the two ships to port and then the two to starboard" she finished her orders to her captains.
Then she put on her helmet and grasped her sword tightly.
"Hands on the handles of the oars, everyone in readiness!" she shouted to her petty officer, who immediately relayed the order to the rowers in the hold.
"Row forward?" asked the petty officer.
"Not yet. When I give the order" shouted Artemisia and she began to climb the mast to watch the course of battle with her own eyes.
She did not need to climb to the top. The wake of a tremendous collision shook every board of the Cassiope. |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 88 | Eyes narrowed.
Lips hermetically sealed.
Xerxes watched the sea battle with increasing discontent, unable to believe his eyes. His ships were crowded together and they were retreating, leaving an empty space to the Greeks, a space that was very useful in this narrow strip of sea.
"Who commands the Phoenicians?" he asked at a certain point, through his teeth.
"Their leader is their king, Mervalos."
"And the Persian admiral?"
"Your brother, Ariavanis."
Xerxes sighed heavily, trying to rid himself simultaneously of his worry and of the rage that overwhelmed him. Then, feeling somewhat calmer, he scanned the sea battle before him once more.
On the eastern side, the Ionians were under great pressure from the Greek advance, but they seemed to be holding out and in some cases, sporadically, to be counterattacking. They had a huge advantage in weaponry and sooner or later they would prevail, since they could afford to lose many ships without reversing the balance of forces. In the center things seemed to be proceeding just as steadily, with the Persian lines holding in spite of the fierce attack they had sustained. But on the west side of their formation, the situation had reversed itself and things looked dangerous. That was the point where his brother Ariavanis was fighting, the point where the elite divisions of Phoenician ships were drawn up against the Athenian ships.
Those divisions were almost torn apart. Some of their ships had been completely destroyed, and nothing remained of others except some broken boards and oars floating on the waves. There were many ships that continued fighting, but they retreated constantly and were in danger of being crushed on the rocks. The longer the emperor watched, the more clearly he saw that the situation was not just dangerous, it was almost desperate. The Phoenicians were being attacked on two fronts simultaneously, from the front and from the side. The forty Greek ships that had withdrawn before the battle had now returned and were striking from the vulnerable starboard side. No matter how well trained and well armed a fleet is, it is still difficult for it to fight off a coordinated double attack. That is true of battles on land and even more true of battles on the sea, as the enraged Xerxes now saw.
"And yet… It is impossible for us to be defeated. Impossible… The Persian army is invincible…" he murmured and raised his eyes to the heavens in a plea to the god of the sun. But the god of the sun had hidden himself behind a thick veil of clouds as if he were abandoning them at the critical moment. |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 89 | With the help of the ships of Adeimantos that had suddenly returned, the Phoenician fleet was rapidly pushed back to the east. The last lines ran aground on the rocks off the coast and were smashed to pieces. The Persian marines sank straight to the bottom in their heavy armor, while the Phoenician rowers who tried to swim away were mown down by javelins and arrows from the decks of the fast approaching Greek ships. The frothy sea was died red and severed hands, feet and heads bobbed in the water along with intestines and pieces of wood from smashed ships.
"They are leaving. The Phoenicians are running for the eastern exit."
"They don't have any other choice" Themistocles answered his helmsman. "If they stay, they won't have a single ship left."
"Shall we pursue them? Full speed ahead?
"No."
"No?"
"Let them go. They cannot escape. The exit from the straits is blocked. They will fall on their own ships trying to get away."
"Then the battle is over for us?"
"The second line of our ships will stay. The first line, advance to the center to help the ships from Megara. Helm to starboard."
The Artemis leaned far over and made the turn.
After the Phoenicians they had to deal with the Egyptians and the Ionians. |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 90 | It was the last thing she expected.
Her gaze was fixed forward, trying to make out a Greek ship, but the sudden jolt came from the starboard side, the side protected by one of her other four ships, the Nymphi. The two ships from Halicarnassus shook spasmodically as they collided, but fortunately they had pulled in their oars or the beams would have broken and the ships would have been impossible to steer.
"What is happening?" she shouted in an alarmed voice to the captain of the Nymphi.
"I don't know. The Phoenicians are crowding us from the west."
"The Phoenicians?" Artemisia's mouth fell open. It was unbelievable. "Why?"
"They are retreating."
The fire inside her was lighted in an instant, worse than it had been when she was young and Sardis burned. If the Phoenicians had lost and were retreating, then everything was lost.
They had to leave. They had to extricate themselves from this destructive jostling as quickly as possible.
"Full speed ahead!"
"Where?" asked the petty officer, looking around him in confusion.
"Ahead!"
"That's difficult."
"Why?"
"Our stern is involved with the Nymphi's stern. There is no room for us to put our oars in the water, except at the bow. And the bow oars don't have enough power to get us out. The rowers are exhausted, they've been rowing continuously since yesterday evening."
Before the desperate petty officer had time to finish explaining, Artemisia jumped up and ran down the ship's corridor. She reached the bow and jumped into the hold, where her rowers were. She was immediately immersed in its choking atmosphere. A heavy odor of sweaty male bodies, urine and decayed corpses assaulted her nostrils in spite of the aromatic oil of lily with which she had anointed herself earlier. She put a scented linen scarf to her nose and stood at the side of the hold, looking her rowers in the eye.
"I know you are exhausted. But we have only one chance to save ourselves and go back to our city, and that chance is now. We must push the ship forward. Even if it's against the gods and against nature, we must do this. Otherwise we will find ourselves at the bottom of the sea and in the kingdom of the underworld. Forward! All together!"
Without waiting for an answer she rushed forward, pushed the first rower from his bench and sat in his place, grasping the oily, dirty handle with both hands.
"Forward, all together! Petty officer, give the rhythm!"
With a loud cry that ended in a cheer, dozens of hands pulled together with the queen. A hollow splash was heard and then a long-drawn out screech of wood rubbing on wood. The hull shuddered, the bow lifted, but the Cassiope stayed in place.
"Again!"
Again they raised the oars, buried them in the water and pulled with the same force.
"Again!"
Another fruitless attempt followed.
"Throw ropes with hooks to the ship in front and pull with us!" she yelled her order to the officer of the marines on deck.
"Strongly, oars and ropes together!"
The Cassiope groaned, shuddered, dragged slowly forward with a blood-curdling sound and then suddenly leapt into the space of water before it.
The cheers of the men filled the hold, but Artemisia did not stay for single a moment to celebrate with them. They had taken the first step towards saving themselves, but there were many more. She climbed up on the bench and from there jumped to the deck and looked around her. She saw pandemonium on the sea, ships clashing and ramming each other at will from one end of the field of battle to the other. Arrows, javelins and rocks shot from the decks fell like rain. All around her she saw flanking movements of ships and desperate marines charging with swords and axes in their hands. But behind her the space left by the Cassiope was enough to allow her other ships to maneuver and follow her out. She ordered her signalman to tell the Nymphi and her other ships to move into the empty space and escape their deadly embrace, and then turned to the petty officer.
"Full speed ahead. We have to get out of this bloodbath right now."
She went back to the stern, to the captain's position and threw a quick glance around the ship to check its condition. The back rails on one side were crippled, but they were quite a bit higher than the waterline and that meant that the damage did not require immediate attention. Many of the oars had been snapped, but they had a store of oars in reserve and could replace some of them in order to build up enough speed to escape. The marines were in their positions, unharmed, and her helmsman gave her a nod to indicate that the two great oars of the rudder were still working perfectly.
She sighed in relief and threw a quick glance at the sea around her to choose the best and safest way out. Then she ordered the helmsman to turn the Cassiope toward the east, the only way out of that well-laid trap. That meant fighting the Spartan division, but as everyone knew, the Spartans were only famous for their prowess in war on the land. On the sea they were inexperienced and weak. That was the best solution, she decided quickly.
"Hard to port, attack speed" she ordered her petty officer.
She looked behind her. The Nymphi, the Amphitriti and the Triaina, three of her four ships, were now sailing in a straight line. The Areti had not managed to extricate herself. It was still in the same place, being hit by other Persian ships and half sunk on the starboard side.
She did not stop to mourn. She merely swore to revenge her lost men and then concentrated all her energy on escaping. Fortunately she had the best crews in the fleet. Their continuous training the summer before was now bearing fruit. The Cassiope, the Nymphi, the Amphitriti and the Triaina maneuvered with the precision of a dancer through the crowded straits, avoiding clashes with out-of-control Persian ships as well as with the Greek ships that lay in wait and made lightning attacks, taking advantage of the high morale of their crews and the haze of battle.
"Full speed ahead to port. Go!"
"I hope the emperor can't see us in this mist… Otherwise we'll save our ships and lose our heads…" murmured Diomedes, the most trustworthy of her men.
"I'll think about that problem later" she answered him curtly. "Now we just have to get out of this shambles without being killed" she added with her eyes on the exit from the sea straits to the east, at the cape of Kynosoura.
Yard by yard they came closer to the exit, avoiding battle so as not to delay. Now they could clearly see their destination: the open sea behind the cape. But now they could also clearly see the Persian ships drawn up there on Achaimenes' orders to prevent the Greeks from escaping. As things had turned out, they had closed their own trap on themselves.
"We're getting nearer, my lady…"
"I see that, Diomedes."
It was now a matter of time before they got there, and with relief Artemisia gave the order to stretch the porphyry sail with the white and gold horns on the small mast. It was the symbol of the Persian fleet and she hoped that the lookouts would recognize it in time to let them pass out of the straits.
Her relief suddenly evaporated when she heard her lookout cry "Greek ships to starboard! And behind us!"
Artemisia jumped in place, terrified, and turned first to the prow and then to the starboard rail.
She saw two ships rowing towards them at high speed. One of them, the one coming up from behind, was very far away and would probably not reach them in time. But the other, with the figurehead of Medusa on its prow, was already rowing towards them at ramming speed. The worst thing was that, behind that ship and a short distance away, there followed two others that were also ready to attack. She might be able to fight off the first, but she would have no chance against all three of them.
She looked to the east, feverishly trying to judge the distance. The exit was near, but not near enough to for them to reach it before the Greek ships got to them.
Themistocles' words came to her mind: "They have put a price of ten thousand drachmas on your head…"
That would explain the manic pursuit. She looked up and down her ship for some emblem of Halicarnassus. On the prow was the wooden statue of her beloved Artemis, the goddess who had given her her name. That was what had betrayed her.
"Take down the figurehead!" she yelled to her lookout. "Chop it down with the axes and throw it in the sea!" she added, internally promising sacrifices and libations to the goddess to abate her wrath over the sacrilege.
Then her eye fell on the porphyry sail her petty officer was holding, getting ready to tie it to the mast.
"No! Throw the Persian emblem back into the hold!" she shouted.
She looked quickly back over the starboard rail. The Greek ships were relentlessly closing the gap. Getting rid of the emblems had not worked, and she had very little time. She had to find another solution, a quick and effective one, and she had to find it immediately.
Panting like a runner racing towards the finish line, she looked around her. Greek and Persian ships were fighting to port and starboard, creating pandemonium, but to starboard she could make out two Persian ships rowing undisturbed towards the exit, raising the porphyry sail with the white horns to get past the Persian navy.
She didn't think about it another moment. She gave the order to turn to the left and told the marines to go to the bows.
"Ramming speed!" she shouted to her petty officer, who was looking at her in astonishment. "Now!"
"They are ships from Caria and Lycia. Ours…"
"Ramming speed!" she repeated, screaming like a madwoman.
The petty order did not dispute her order again. He bent to the deck and transferred it to the rowers immediately.
The Cassiope turned to port and plunged forward with her prow vertical to the direction of the waves, not at top speed but steadily and with her ram making a firm straight line.
The ship in front of her, the flagship of Caria, the ship of King Damasythymos, was moving at a slow pace towards the exit, waiting for the Persian ships to open a passage.
"Ram!" shouted Artemisia without hesitating for a second.
The Cassiope dealt a crushing blow. Its ram found the Persian ship almost at a standstill and struck it at an angle of forty five degrees, opening an enormous rift under the waterline.
Cries of pain from the wounded rowers and the yells of surprise from the marines on the deck followed the crackling sound of crushed wood. Damasythymos turned his head in astonishment and his mouth fell open when he saw the queen of Halicarnassus at the stern of the ship that had hit him.
The rowers of the Cassiope received the order to row backwards and detach the ship while Damasythymos, beside himself with rage at Artemisia's treachery, shouted to his marines to throw out ropes and hooks and storm its decks before his ship sank. At the same instant, a rain of arrows and stones was shot against the Cassiope by the desperate Persian marines on the deck of their rammed ship.
"Weapons in your hands! Everyone at the bow!"
Artemisia looked behind her. The Greek ships had slowed down their rhythm and some had stopped completely, watching the strange spectacle of the ramming. The attack on the Persian ship confused them, and now they assumed they had been chasing the wrong prey. Before Artemisia turned her eyes away, the first of the Greek ships that had been pursuing them had maneuvered to starboard and rowed away.
She smiled in satisfaction. But not for long. In front of her a battle was raging. Her crew was trying to cut the ropes thrown by the Persians, while her marines had raised their spears to repel their attack. She sought out the captain and ran forward, snatching the sword from the sheath hanging at her side. As she ran down the passageway the first Persian warriors set foot in her bows, which had not yet detached themselves. Fortunately there were not many of them, most having fallen from the deck into the sea at the moment of impact.
"Single file!" she shouted, running. "Form lines! Lock shields! Raise spears!" |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 91 | "It is the Cassiope, the ship of Artemisia."
The messenger had just returned from the eastern lookout, bringing the answer to the question the emperor had asked a short time earlier.
Xerxes nodded and told his personal scribe to note down the name on his papyrus.
"Why?" asked Mardonius, who had expected her to finally get the punishment her insolent and disobedient character deserved.
"She shall inscribed in the Orasagon… She deserves it…" the king answered him.
"The role of imperial benefactors?" asked Mardonius, stunned by the unexpected answer. "Her treachery is undeniable."
"It was not treachery."
"The ship she hit was not Greek, Great King. It was ours. It was the ship of Damasythymos, king of…"
Xerxes raised his hand tiredly, commanding him to stop. "I know. But again, I believe it was not treachery. It was a struggle to survive, to save her life and the lives of her men. And in such a struggle, everything is allowed. If we had more commanders like Artemisia, we would have avoided this disaster…"
The words of Xerxes faded inside the bitter taste of defeat in his mouth as red-hot iron fades in ice water. His hand went limply to the armrest of his throne and his body reclined in a posture of exhaustion and resignation. But his gaze remained fixed on the straits before him which were full of oars, planks, broken sterns, half sunk keels, human limbs and broken bodies. He took a deep breath and sighed, breathing out forcefully in an attempt to release all of his pent-up frustration.
"My men fight like women and my women like men…" he murmured slowly and tonelessly. |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 92 | As the hours passed, the victory of the Greek fleet grew more and more certain. Those Persian ships that remained unharmed and were still fighting, were attacked many times in ways that were difficult to resist. Most were crowded together at the exit of the straits, trying to escape. Many were smashed against the rocks on the coast while others were torn apart when they fell on friendly prows, rams and oars. The Persian ships that managed to escape the straits sailed quickly to Faliro and Piraeus where the Greek ships could not follow them, and where they were protected by the Persian army.
"Do not try to take plunder, or to capture the enemy's ships to tow them to Salamis as trophies!" Themistocles ordered, looking down from his high stern at the battlefield, the sea covered with debris, its waves dyed red with blood. "Just sink them and kill the crews…"
And that is exactly what most of the Greek ships did. Leaning over the rails, their hearts full of hatred after the painful days and nights they had spent in Salamis watching their city burn, the marines spied out Persians who were still swimming or clinging to the wreckage of their ships and finished them off with javelins and arrows, like fishermen who have come upon a school of fish.
"Prow to the east!"
Themistocles had no desire to become involved in that slaughter. He left the others to carry out their horrible duty. Besides, his resourceful mind was not used to thinking about revenge. It was absolutely concentrated on results. Small purposes did not interest him at all. Only the great purpose mattered. And now, the great purpose was to sink as many Persian ships as they could, to prevent them from getting away and to remove the Persian threat from the sea once and for all.
The Persian ships crowding the exit of the straits resembled a flock of sheep being attacked by wolves. The ships in front pressed forward with whatever oars they had left, those in the center were crushed by the pressure, and those behind had turned their rams backwards in a hopeless attempt to cover their weak points and repel the attacking Greeks.
Around the Persian formation, in a great semicircle, sailed the ships from Aegina and Megara. They circled the flock, thirsty for blood, but could not find any gap which would allow them to attack with their rams. The Persians had learned from the tactic the Greeks had invented at Artemisio, and they were using it now.
"There is no other solution…" murmured Themistocles as he stretched out his hand and grasped his helmet, his sword and his spear.
He placed his marines in the bows in battle position and gave ropes to the rest of the crew on the decks, ordering them to climb the masts so they could throw the ropes more easily and hook the enemy ship.
"There are too few of us to take the ship by storm. We only have ten soldiers and the Persian ships have forty. It will be one against four. They'll win," objected Sosikles, the officer in command of his marines.
"Counting me, there are eleven of us. But that doesn't matter. You don't win just by capturing ships. You win by dominating the enemy's mind. You win when you have made him accept his defeat. And the Persians know they are beaten. That will paralyze their hands and weigh down their weapons.
"But they might react like a cornered animal. They might fight tooth and nail like a wild thing that doesn't have a way to escape. If we get close to them, it's likely they'll try to board our ship to save themselves."
Themistocles thought about that for a moment. He knew about democracy, and he knew that the most important thing any politician or general can do is not to speak with confidence, but to listen with understanding.
"You are right. Tell the rowers. Since we're not ramming, we don't need three banks of oars. The first line of rowers will come on deck together with the marines" he ordered the petty officer.
"But they're not soldiers. They don't know how to do anything else but row."
"That's what they're going to do now too…" Themistocles said enigmatically, and he put on his helmet and gave the command to approach the enemy vessel, ready for hand to hand combat.
The air was filled with the war cries of the Persians and the battle hymn of the Greeks, the shouts of the petty officers and the groans of the rowers, the clashing of swords on the metal of shields and the thunder of running feet on the decks.
"Lock shields! shouted Themistocles. "Everyone forward!"
As the two ships came closer together, he climbed onto the tip of the prow in front of all his men, ready to leap onto the enemy ship. He was a riveting sight. High above everyone else, dressed in his bronze armor with the white crest of his helmet and his blue cloak fluttering in the breeze, he looked like Talus, the mythical supernatural warrior, or like a fearless sea warrior rising from the waves, sent by the god Poseidon himself.
As soon as the ships touched, ropes were thrown and arrows and stones were simultaneously shot from both sides. Persians and Greeks climbed up on the prows and the rails, ready to board. Then the rowers came forward, stretched out their long oars and started to sweep the enemy's deck, throwing down the Persian marines and creating gaps in their defensive line.
"Charge!" shouted Themistocles, and with a bound, taking advantage of a gap in front of him, he jumped to the enemy's deck while simultaneously lowering his heavy sword on the body of a Persian and splitting it in two.
Behind him the other Athenians poured in through the toothless Persian line onto the deck of the other ship. After the boarding, things were easier. The bronze armor of the Greeks and their long spears were more effective in hand to hand combat.
Foot by foot, aided by the fatigue of the Persians after rowing all day and all night as well as by their sense of defeat, the Athenians advanced in formation from the prow to the stern, eliminating everyone who stood against them. At the very back, pressed up against the curved ornament of the stern, stood two enormous Persian warriors on either side of Daskylos, from the island of Samos.
"He's mine" shouted Themistocles when he saw him, because he had tried many times unsuccessfully to convince Daskylos to enroll Samos in the Greek alliance. The Samians were famous for their greed, and they always put gold above honor. "Now he will pay for everything…"
He plunged forward with two other men. The first buried the point of his spear in the breast of a Persian, but the second was not so successful. The Persian's ax sliced the spear in half, was raised, and then came down heavily on his head. The bronze helmet could not withstand the terrible blow from the ax. It was split in two along with his skull, and the blade of the ax did not stop until it reached the breastbone, making the Athenian marine resemble an animal prepared for sacrifice.
The first marine immediately turned and tried to strike the gigantic Persian with his bloody spear. He had no better luck. His spear was shattered by the heavy ax before it could touch the scaly armor. The Athenian took a step back to avoid the huge weapon on its way down, but his foot slipped on the body of his comrade and he fell to the deck beside him, looking up with terror at the approaching giant. The Persian raised his ax again, holding it firmly in both hands. His dirty, sweaty face was distorted with a grin of triumph. But before he could lower the heavy ax, his expression changed to doubt, pain and paralysis and he collapsed, shaking the wooden boards of the stern with his enormous bulk and still holding the ax in his hands.
In the moment when the Persian was standing with his arms raised and his breast uncovered, Themistocles had taken a step forward and buried his sword deep in the left side of his unprotected chest. He stooped over the lifeless Persian body, pulled out the sword and wiped off the blood on the colorful Persian trousers.
Then he raised it and looked the well-fed Daskylos, who was shaking like a big fish caught in a net, in the eye.
"You betrayed the Athenians once when you accepted darian gold and ran from the battle of Lade. A few months ago you betrayed us again when you refused to join the Greek alliance and sent ships and men to aid Xerxes in his campaign against us. I begged you many times, but you didn't even take the time to give us an answer" he said, in a tone that called to mind an orator much more than a warrior. "Now the time has come for you to pay for everything, in the name of the people of Athens…"
Daskylos fell to his knees and held up his hands. Golden jewelry glinted between his fingers. He held it out towards the Athenian and wept, begging for mercy.
"Take it, son of Neocles. I have more in the hold. And even more on Samos. It will all be yours if you let me live…" he said with lips trembling from fear.
Themistocles took three steps forward and stood over Daskylos. Then he looked at his gathered men. Without a word, he brought down his sword on Daskylos' neck, cutting off the head which rolled all the way to the other side of the deck.
"Take it and nail it to the mast. And don't sink the ship. I want to tow it to Salamis so that everyone can see what happens to traitors."
"And the body with it?"
"No…"
Burial and respect for the dead were things the Greeks could not neglect.
"Throw his body in the sea."
"Without burial? He is Greek, he believes in the same gods as we do. It is hubris and sacrilege to throw him in the sea."
"Hubris, yes, but justified for a traitor" said Themistocles coldly. He would hear those words again some years later, and he would remember them until the end of his life. |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 93 | Night fell quickly, covering up the hideous scene. Bodies were washing up all along the shores and many more were anchored to the bottom by their armor. Human limbs were tumbled by the waves and the wind. Planks, oars, sail, broken prows and sterns. Catastrophe. Annihilation. Disgrace.
Yes, night fell quickly, but Xerxes did not rise from his throne on the mountainside. He sat without moving, his shoulders bowed, his face expressionless, his gaze fixed on the east, where the sky was already dark.
His thoughts were blacker than the deepest darkness. The sights he had seen that day weighed on him like a heavy burden. His breath came in slowly, like that of a person forced to his knees. It was a strange way for a King, a Great King, a King of Kings, to breathe.
"How many ships did we lose?" he asked finally in a toneless voice.
"About two hundred and forty. Together with the desertions, perhaps two hundred and fifty."
Silence.
Silence and concentration.
"Men?"
"Fifty thousand. But the nations are still counting them. Perhaps sixty thousand before the night is over."
"Sixty thousand men in one day…"
It was impossible to believe the number he heard. Even more than the number, it was impossible to believe the loss of the flower of the Persian nobility who commanded the divisions of the fleet and the marines on the decks. The slaves rowing the ships were expendable, but not the Persian nobles. Among them were two of his brothers.
The advisors and generals waiting on him were also silent in the darkness. The sorrow of the King was sacred, and at such moments no one had the right to speak to him without his permission.
The silence and the motionlessness lasted for hours. Hours that passed slowly, tortuously for the emperor, and anxiously for those waiting for his decisions and fearing his rage and his punishments.
But they were wrong to fear his rage. Rage had been replaced by disappointment, a more devious, more excruciating emotion. Rage is easy to satisfy but disappointment is not, it slowly digs holes in the spirit and snuffs out every hope as it gnaws away at the will and wears down morale. Even the morale of kings.
"Take the commanders of the Phoenicians and behead them. They have not kept their promises, they were not worthy of their reputation. They ran like cowardly women, betrayed my trust, and are more responsible for the disaster than anyone else" said Xerxes after hours had passed, and he ordered the torches to be lighted to start the council of war.
"Here?"
"Here, Mardonius. Before the field of catastrophe. Incorrect actions are the best path to correct thoughts."
When the torches wrapped in resin had been lighted, reflecting off the shining throne and the gloomy faces gathered around it, Xerxes commanded that the great map of the sea between Asia and Europe should be brought before him and spread out.
"Our time is running out" he said after he had looked at the map thoughtfully for a while. "The days have grown colder and the nights longer. Winter is before us and our army will starve if it remains encamped here."
"Perhaps we could disperse it over Attica and Boeotia. It will be easier to find food" proposed Mardonius.
"Those are areas we have already looted, ravaged and burned. They cannot support that many thousands of men."
"And now, without our fleet, it is impossible to bring the stores from Thrace and Macedonia here" said Ariaranes, the emperor's advisor. "But the state of the food for our spirits is even worse than the state of the food for our bodies. Soon winter will be here. The men are impatient to return to their country and their families. How can we keep their morale high when we don't have victory, plunder and spoil to offer them?" he wondered at the end.
Xerxes nodded thoughtfully. Even an emperor could understand the correctness of the words of his wise advisor, no matter how unpleasant they sounded in his ears. One defeat can bring a man to his senses better than thousands of words.
"You are right, Ariaranes…" he murmured dejectedly.
"We can withdraw the army to Macedonia. There the lands and the cities are untouched, they can feed it. We can wait there until next spring and then start another campaign against Greece" proposed Hydarnes.
"This many thousand men will need a month, maybe two to turn back. Why? Why should they stay on foreign ground all winter? And then they would have to turn south and go past Thermopylae again. With what courage? With what morale?"
"With the courage given by fear. With their morale raised by the promises we give them. Because does our emperor not rule that way? With an iron fist and divine generosity" retorted Hydarnes in support of his proposal. "Our army never retreats, is never defeated!" he shouted at the end, in a last attempt to raise the abject morale of the war council, and of the king himself.
"And yet, believe me, Hydarnes… All armies can be defeated… Even my father, the Great Darius, was defeated when campaigning in the land of the Scythians…" was the king's answer.
"But that did not stop him from ruling the empire for many more years with strength and decisiveness" added Ariaranes.
Artemisia took her gaze from the island of Salamis. During all those hours of waiting she had been looking intensely at the land across from the straits. There were fires burning everywhere on the shores and on the hills. She looked and wondered if the traitor, the devious, charming Athenian, was still alive, alive to enjoy the result of his cunning, his victory and his triumph. Perhaps, if he was alive, she could reveal her great secret to him now that everything was over. Should she keep the flame of hope alive inside her, her hope to have him alive near her one day, beside her and beside her son, waiting for them back in Halicarnassus?
"In regard to that…" she said, raising her voice suddenly, "I would like to relate some thoughts that have passed through my mind…"
"The mind of a woman? By the god of the sun, I've never heard anything more paradoxical" mocked Hydarnes.
"You again?" Mardonius reacted more calmly, turning his eyes, narrowed in rage, toward her.
Xerxes raised his hand. "Let her speak. She is the only one who gave me good advice on this campaign… Come forward, Queen of Halicarnassus…"
Artemisia left the line, walked to the pedestal of the throne, and stood before the emperor.
"Lower your eyes" said Mardonius curtly.
Xerxes smiled for the first time. "She is the only one among us who has the right to raise them. Speak, Artemisia… I am listening…"
"My father and your faithful servant, the satrap Lygdamis, has told me that on that campaign the King of Kings and King of the Earth, Darius the Great, faced an even greater problem than defeat."
"What do you mean?"
"The Scythian warriors cut the bridges he had built over the great river for his troops to pass. After the defeat and without the bridges, the return of that great army was made impossible by the river swollen with water. And thus many brave men, valuable to the empire, were lost. I wonder…"
"What?"
"I wonder if the Greeks, now that they have become rulers of the sea, will cut off the sea routes… How will so many hundreds of thousands of men return? How will our troops return, Great King? And most importantly, how will you return with your entourage?"
"Unacceptable! That is unacceptable!" Hydarnes shouted in a rage. "The emperor and his army do not run like rats from a sinking ship. They stay on the field of battle, they fight and they overcome! Your questions are Greek. Rhetorical, asked merely to make an impression. They are worth nothing!"
"And yet…" aged Ariaranes said slowly "They are questions of a prudent mind, not the cries of a conceited spirit."
"Do you agree with her?" the king asked him.
"I agree that we must think very seriously about the concerns she expresses. Besides, the advice she has given, as you said yourself, my King, has all been correct. So why should we not listen to her now?"
"We can build more ships over the winter. We can face the Greeks again and defeat them. We can become rulers of the sea again" shouted Mardonius in support of Hydarnes.
"It is difficult to build that many ships in such a short time. And it is impossible to find trained crews to replace those we lost" said Achaimenes, the leader of the crippled Persian fleet. "For the next few months, unfortunately, the Greeks will be the rulers of the sea."
"Well then? What will stop them from cutting off our return by sea if we give them time to develop their fleet?" asked Artemisia.
"Our return…" Xerxes repeated slowly.
"It is true that it is difficult to feed an army as large as ours in winter on enemy territory. But a smaller one? An army that is easier to move?"
"What are you trying to say, Mardonius?" asked Ariaranes, puzzled and uneasy, because he too believed that the Persians must avoid staying in Greece at all costs. The messengers who had arrived a few days before from Persia by the imperial road, had brought bad news from Susa. The Babylonians had rebelled again and Egypt was seething in the absence of the imperial army. "What is your proposal, general? Speak clearly, not in riddles.
"I propose that the emperor and his entourage should return with half his army and that I should remain here with the other half, to offer him the conquest of Greece next year as a gift."
The lips of Ariaranes curved in a half smile of contentment. "The emperor must return in any case. Half the army can remain without cost to the empire. The proposal of Mardonius, as I hear it, is a proposal that is wise and prudent."
"Besides, you have fulfilled your promise to your father, Great King. Athens has been destroyed…" added Artemisia.
Xerxes stretched out his hand and commanded his servant to bring him the golden cup with the sweet wine.
He brought the full cup slowly to his lips and drank a few sips. Then he suddenly turned it over and poured the rest on the ground.
Finally, he raised his head and turned his gaze to the east, to the land of his fathers and the boundless territories of his empire.
The sun was just rising. Rosy-fingered dawn glowed faintly on the horizon.
"We are leaving…" he said slowly. "The sun hid its face all day yesterday and it has come out again today, after the destruction. The god is telling us to return… |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Chapter 94 | Day was breaking at the watchtower on Salamis, at the edge of the peninsula, in Kynosoura across from Athens.
This time without suspense.
Without fear.
"We are the rulers of the sea" said Themistocles, unable to conceal his self-satisfaction.
"But victory on the sea cannot give us back our city" Aristeides answered drily, looking sorrowfully across at the ruined Athens.
"We will take it back. We will rebuild it. Greater. More glorious.
"The Persians still rule the land. You cannot build cities on the sea."
"The sea was the decisive step. The first great blow to the arrogant Persian."
"What will the second be? Will we disembark troops in Faliro?" asked Cimonas, who was standing behind them.
"No. that will be the third step. The second is to take advantage of today's victory and our mastery on the sea."
"Don't talk in riddles and enigmas to impress me. We're not the crowd. Tell us clearly what you're thinking."
"I am thinking we should go on campaign, Aristeides."
"Against Persia?" asked Cimonas in astonishment. He had learned to expect anything and everything from the reckless Themistocles.
"No. On the beaches of Ionia and all the islands in between, to cut off their return. The Persian army will be shut in here, far from its supply bases and reserves. It is our great opportunity to be done with them once and for all.
"Great opportunities like that, Themistocles, are usually seen by small minds. Or by great minds that have become dangerously swollen by a triumph. You mind is not small, but it is probably very swollen. You are a masterful thinker, but you can be carried away by your abilities and end up in catastrophe" Aristeides told him bluntly.
Cimonas started up at the insult to the man whom everyone admitted was the savior of Greece.
But Themistocles was not angry. He did not even reply to the insult.
"It is our chance for glory… Our chance to trap and destroy the whole enemy army" he said simply.
"For glory… isn't the glory you got today enough for you?" Aristeides asked ironically, before going back to his usual serious tone. "If the only thing you want is glory, I don't have anything more to say. But what I want is to get back our city by driving the Persians out of our land. And there isn't a better way to fail in doing that, than by trapping them here."
"Why?" asked Themistocles, honestly puzzled.
"Because everyone knows that a wild beast that loses all hope of getting out alive, will fight fiercely to the end with everything it has. We do not want to annihilate all the Persians. What we want is to force them to leave as soon as possible. That is precisely why we must not only not make their escape difficult, but make it easier if we can."
Themistocles did not speak. He simply thought and listened. In any case, that was the great advantage that had brought him his victory. He always listened to good advice, forgetting his egotism and his stubbornness.
"Yes… Perhaps you are right, Aristeides…" he admitted after a little while. "But…"
"But you want the glory."
"Haste is worse than stupidity sometimes" he said, smiling. "You are right. We must not cut off their retreat. But that is precisely why we must continue to say it as if we were certain to do it. It's a good idea to let all our Persian captives know that as clearly as we can, and then let them go back to their camp to tell their emperor what they have learned here. That the Greeks will cut off all the sea routes very soon…"
Aristeides smiled, understanding the trick. "Sometimes you frighten me, Themistocles. I am afraid I will never manage to beat you in the assembly. One day I might have to ostracize you and exile you to get rid of you…" he said in a cheerful and light-hearted voice, as if he were making some joke to his soldiers.
But neither Themistocles nor Cimonas laughed. Both of them knew that Aristeides' memory was worse than a camel's, and so was his stubbornness.
"If we're going to use your trick, then we have to hurry" said Cimonas to break the awkward silence. "We can't be sure the captives will be alive much longer. Especially now that the soldiers on their side are setting fire to the few buildings that remain standing in the city…"
The three Athenians turned and looked darkly at the new fires burning across from them. The Persians that had survived the massacre had spent the night in contemptible revenge, setting fires to what remained of Athens.
"Yes, victory on the sea could not save our city…" repeated Aristeides with simultaneous rage and sorrow.
"It saved us though."
"You may feel great today, but you are nothing in comparison with your country. Not one of us is so great that he is worth saving at the price of Athens."
"Not one of us, no. But we, her citizens, all her people who have been saved, we can rebuild her gloriously just because we managed to save ourselves" Themistocles told him sharply. "A city is not her buildings or her streets or even her temples. A city is not her lands or the fortunes of her rich citizens, strange as that may seem to you, Aristeides. A city is her people. It is her citizens. And because of our victory on the sea, those are unharmed and no longer in danger."
"For all your pompous rhetoric, the Persians still have our lands. Where will we build this new city? On the water of the sea, perhaps? Is it your purpose that we should become followers of Poseidon? Or do you perhaps want us to live out the rest of our lives in boats, as fishers and oarsmen?"
"You could never accept that, leader of the oligarchs, arrogant aristocrat." Themistocles answered, laughing sarcastically.
"I don't understand. What do you mean?"
"That today's victory was not won by your kind, the supercilious aristocrats born into wealth, but by the poor, the illiterate, the humble and the despised, the worst, as you like to call them. The simple people of the earth and the sea. The fishers and oarsmen. The people of Athens…"
"They are necessary too, I'm not saying they're not."
"At least you admit it."
"Necessary for you, I mean. Necessary for a rabble-rouser demagogue who needs to manipulate the crowd to rule the city just as he likes, without any control!" Aristeides raised his voice in indignation.
"I have never ruled without any control. I have always had the consent of the democratic assembly."
"Exactly. The assembly. The mob you control to ostracize and exile your opponents…" said Aristeides with a bitter note in his voice that was entirely personal.
"But I brought you back. I convinced them to repeal your exile."
"So you could win."
"It was not only me that won. We all won together."
"But before that, you convinced the mob to exile me. You decided that I had to leave the city so you wouldn't have me underfoot and you imposed on the assembly…"
"That's democracy, my friend. The people decide, the same people you call the mob. And their decisions must be respected because they are sacred. Even if they are painful, like exile" Themistocles answered him easily and naturally. Just then, on the day of his great triumph, he could not know that he would hear the same words many years later, and he would remember them until the end of his life.
Cimonas, who had been listening to them without speaking all this time, shook his head sadly. Only a few hours had passed since their magnificent victory, and the two political opponents had already started arguing, mocking and threatening each other again, forgetting the few hours when they had stood united against the enemy.
"Greeks…" he muttered to himself downheartedly. Then, giving a bitter smile, he turned to go. "They'll never change…" |
300 The Empire | Theo Papas | [
"historical fiction",
"Greece"
] | [] | Epilogue | [ 459 B.C. ]
[ "I, Themistocles" ]
The man walked up and down with hesitant steps in the half-dark room which was lit only by the faint, flickering light of oil lamps. He went to the great window on the east side, pushed aside the linen curtain that kept out the heat of the sun during the day, and looked at the view that lay before him, all silver under the full moon. There were fig trees and vineyards next to the great farmhouse, then olive trees and wheatfields, the cut stalks of harvested wheat gleaming in the silver rays.
He let out the stale air he had been holding in his chest and longingly breathed in the warm evening breeze, as the scents of the countryside surrounded him. The scents that were familiar to him from his childhood years. The scents of his country. The heavy, sweet odor of the figs first of all, then the slight sourness of the vines with their maturing grapes, the delicate but piercing tinge of the olive trees and the hot, choking smell of the harvested wheat.
It was all an illusion he stubbornly cultivated here in Magnesia on the coast of Asia, where he had lived for ten years now. He was a journey of months away from Athens and Greece. A sea separated him from his country, a sea that the Athenians had controlled for many years now, thanks to him. The one they had sent away, the one they had condemned for treason and exiled.
In one hand he held the papyrus with the golden border and the imperial seal, and in the other the full cup he had been holding for a long time now without drinking a drop. His mind travelled through images, words, triumphs, praise, accusations, persecution. The first few years after they defeated the Persians had been years of acclamation and increasing power. Then followed accusations and a fall. It was the usual tactic in Greece, and he did not blame anyone. He knew the rules. Before he suffered from them, he had taken advantage of them himself.
"Artemis, my goddess and my protector…" he murmured, looking at the dark forest covering the mountainside opposite. "Guide me, give me strength."
In his life he had enjoyed everything it was possible to enjoy. He had had victories in the beginning. It had all started with that first time when he saved Lambrias in their training. Then he had won distinction in politics, was elected to the position of general, had resolutions voted on in the assembly of the people, created the fleet, made the agreement with Leonidas, led the navy, won victory with his tricks and strategies, and triumphed over the Persians. Immediately after that came the best years of his life. He had held the first place in honor among the Greeks who fought against the Persians, there had been eulogies and the crown of olives was awarded him by the Spartans for his wisdom and bravery in battle. And finally there was his best moment, the height of his glory, when he entered the stadium during the Olympic Games and thousands of spectators from all over Greece had stopped cheering the athletes and applauded him, the hero and savior of their country.
Yes, in his life he had enjoyed everything. And right after that, he had suffered everything. Plots, accusations, condemnation, exile, persecution. The assembly of the people that he himself had supported with all his might against the scorn and oppression of the aristocrats, decided to exile him from the city he had made glorious. Then began his great persecution, the worst period in his life, the merciless pursuit from one end of Greece to the other. He lived every day in fear and with the bitterness of ingratitude, the most painful of all emotions. He was persecuted, humiliated and condemned as a traitor by his own country.
"As a traitor…" he muttered to himself in a heavy voice, and looked at the papyrus in his hand. "I… Themistocles…"
He left Greece by night hidden in a merchant ship to save himself, before the soldiers could arrest him. Because the only helping hand stretched out to him in his time of trouble was the hand of his beloved, whom he had mocked and betrayed. Artemisia, who received him in Halicarnassus. Artemisia, who generously offered him refuge and hospitality worthy of a hero.
"And of a father… The father of our child…" she murmured, and for a moment a faint smile played on her lips.
The memory of the queen filled his mind for a little while. She was a relief and an embrace for his troubled spirit. He could still see her warm eyes and feel her smooth skin, enjoy her delicious body after so many years. But most of all, it was her warm-hearted words that he remembered now, in his sorrow. And even more than that, he remembered their son looking at him from a distance in the stadiums and gymnasiums. He had a strong body and a sharp mind. He's a worthy son, he had thought then, worthy of the mother who raised him. They were a great comfort, both of them, Jason and Artemisia.
"I can't do this…" she told him six months after he came to Halicarnassus, and Themistocles saw what he had never expected to see, tears in her fearless eyes. "I can't keep you here any longer. My legal husband demands that you leave…"
"Where can I go?" he asked, and his surprised mind was unable to find a solution.
But a solution was found, unexpectedly, that same night of perplexity and despair, after he prayed to the goddess Artemis. Later that evening he had a dream which was clearly send by the goddess to give him advice. He saw a great snake wrapped around his belly and gliding towards his throat. But as soon as it touched his face, it became a winged lion that enfolded him in its wings, picked him up and carried him far away in the direction of the sunrise. There, suddenly, a rod appeared like the ones held by messengers, but this one was made of gold and carved with a winged lion at its top, and he supported himself on it. Then he woke up and felt calmer, as if he had been released from the terrible turmoil and anxiety he had felt since hearing Artemisia's words.
The next day he left for Persia to the east. Royal chariots accompanied him and ambassadors from Halicarnassus traveled with him to present his case at the court of Artaxerxes, who ruled the empire after the death of his father, Xerxes.
He was astonished when the emperor greeted him warmly, spoke to him as a friend and presented him to his councilors and his courtiers. He welcomed him in his court and expressed the wish in front of everyone that Ahura Mazda would always give such minds to his enemies that they would send away their most competent leaders in peace and in war.
That was how he became the friend of the king he once defeated and humiliated. He sat at his side at symposia and gave him advice, when he asked, on questions of war, especially war on the sea. And the Persians did have many problems on the sea, since they had never managed to become familiar with it. And he was always his favorite and first on the list of his friends.
"I, Themistocles…"
And later, when many years had passed and the pursuit had died down, he asked to be allowed to withdraw from the Persian court and to live quietly, far away from his country, but also far away from other people, since the things he had lived through could not be experienced by anyone else, even if given the gift of immortality by the gods.
Then large territories were granted to him by his friend, the Great King Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, his enemy. They were located on the coast of Asia near the sea so that he could gaze towards his country from the tops of his hills, the country that had covered him with glory as its hero and condemned him as a traitor.
"I, Themistocles… Glory and shame together" he murmured slowly and sat on the ledge of the open window, filling his lungs with the clear air of morning and the nostalgic scents of the countryside.
He opened the papyrus he held in his hands and read the command of his benefactor, sent officially by ambassador from Persepolis, now the capital of the Persian empire. At its top, in decorative golden letters, was the name of the Great King. Then the imperial emblems, the winged lion and the white hawks crowned with the rays of the god of the sun, the Great Creator. Then the letters forming words which could be counted on the fingers of two hands, but which were heavy as anchors that reach the bottom of the sea in one breath.
And that was where Themistocles the Athenian was now. At the bottom. In his mind was Nemesis, the goddess of punishment. The time had come to pay for the good things he enjoyed from his friendship with the Great King. In the worst way. By really betraying his country. By making war against the fleet he himself had created. The one now commanded by Cimonas, the terror of the sea.
The Great King was asking his friend for help. Egypt had revolted again and the Athenian fleet was sailing to its aid. The king was asking him to make war against the fleet he knew so well. To take up command of the Persian ships and lead them with a steady hand and decisive spirit in the sea battle to victory over the Athenians, since he had no equal anywhere in the world in the art of naval warfare.
"Shall I really become a traitor to my country that bore me and raised me?" he had asked himself when he read the papyrus. "Or shall I become a traitor to my benefactor, who saved my life when everyone was persecuting me and denied me aid?"
It was a terrible dilemma. A terrible impasse. There was no answer. Both choices were the worst choice.
Traitor or ungrateful?
"Aren't those two the same thing?"
Just before the full moon reached the middle of its path, after praying to Artemis for hours, a thought came to his mind with the suddenness and clearness of lightning in the night sky.
"I have reached the age of sixty-five… I have seen many things in my life and experienced much more… My name will go down in history because of the things I have achieved in peace and in war, I, the unimportant son of a simple merchant, the hybrid citizen of a city that at that time was pretentious. Those things are not small…"
All the rest of the night brought images of glory and greatness to his mind.
He saw Artemisio and Salamis, the battles on land and sea and the victories. Then the distinction for bravery, the honorary crown from Sparta, the apotheosis in Olympia.
He looked first to the east, to his savior the Great King, two thousand kilometers away. And then to the west, to his great love, the sea. And beyond that, to his country. Athens. Greece. Crowned by the rosy and golden light of dawn.
"The time has come…" he murmured, smiling in satisfaction. He raised the silver cup he had been holding all night and drank the poison down in one gulp.
⁂
Notes:
- The Panathenaia was an ancient Greek festival in Athens dedicated to the patroness of the city, the goddess Athena. It took place every four years and for the citizens of Athens it was the most important event of the year, but it was not considered to be as important as the Olympic Games.
- The Taurobolion were sacred rituals conducted with sacrifices, which were very common in the ancient world. They were carried out to honor the Great Mother Goddess, the personification of the fertility of the earth, like the Egyptian Isis, the Phrygian Cybele, the Phoenician Astarte and possibly the Greek Dimitra in the Eleusinian mysteries. The Taurobolion was later transferred to Rome, mainly by the emperors Claudius and Hadrian.
- The Fates were three ancient Greek deities who determined the destiny of humans. Lachesis distributed the good and the bad, Clotho spun the thread of life, and Atropos cut it causing death.
- When the ancient Athenians became 18 years old they had to serve as soldiers for two years. In a formal ceremony they presented themselves to the democratic assembly of the city, were registered in the lists of adult citizens, and were given a spear and a shield. This ceremony was often accompanied by theatrical events. Then they climbed up to the Acropolis as armed soldiers and gave the Ephebic Oath holding a shield.
- The Hetaeras of Ancient Greece were a socially accepted institution. Although they were paid for their recreational and erotic services, they were very different from the simple prostitutes of the streets. They usually offered their services at symposia or banquets. The symposia were the prototype of male recreation and sociability. They were not open to reputable women, mothers, wives and daughters. In the symposia the men conversed, ate and drank, usually until they fell over and until dawn. After the philosophical dialogs and the political discussions there were dances, singing and games. They were the main area of activity of the hetaeras, who offered entertainment with conversation, jokes and finally with sexual intercourse, all paid for by the man who organized the symposium.
- Nemesis was an ancient Greek deity and simultaneously the personification of the goddess of justice, who gave everyone the happiness or the unhappiness that he or she deserved. She was the personification of vengeance, like the Furies, but she punished not only crime but also all garrulity and arrogance. The goddess's symbols were the ruler and the bridle. With these symbols she measured human thoughts, emotions and actions and put a limit on the rampant promiscuity of human egotism. Thus the conceit of mortals before the laws and their gross indifference to the common good were kept in check by the activity of Nemesis.
- The Agora of ancient Athens was the open area located next to the Acropolis and to the northwest of it. In ancient times it was the administrative, philosophical, educational, social, political and, above all, the economic center of the city. Its most important buildings were the Parliament, the Pyrtaneum (the seat of government), the Mint and the Court.
- Delphi was a Greek city where the most important oracle of the ancient Greek world was located, the Oracle of Delphi. It was dedicated to the god Apollo. The Pythia was the seeress who fell into a sacred ecstasy and gave her predictions, which were usually ambiguous and enigmatic and required interpretation by the priests of the oracle.
- The two great political parties of ancient Athens were the Democrats who spoke for the simple people and the Oligarchs who spoke for the aristocrats and noblemen. During the years of the Persian wars, Themistocles would become leader of the former and Aristeides leader of the latter.
- The Battle of Marathon, which was fought in August or September of 490 B.C., was a clash between the Greeks (Athenians and Plataeans) and the Persians during the first invasion of Greece by the Persians. Under the command of Datis and Artaphernes, the Persian army of fifty thousand foot soldiers, ten thousand cavalry and five hundred ships invaded Greece and encamped at Marathon about twenty five miles northwest of Athens, where they were met by a force of ten thousand Athenians without cavalry or ships. The battle ended in a decisive victory for the Greeks, owing to the military genius of General Miltiades, and the Persians were forced to go back to Asia in defeat, leaving thousands of dead on the field of battle. When the Olympic Games were revived in 1896, the organizers were searching for a contest that would commemorate the glory of Ancient Greece and Pierre de Coubertin suggested that the Marathon should be included. The distance of 26.23 miles was determined, exactly the distance from Athens to the battleground near Marathon.
- Greece was not a unified state, nor a compact empire. Each of its cities was its own little state, autonomous and unbound, with its own economy, institutions and army. The link that united all of these city states was their common origin, common language and common religion. The feeling that they belonged to the same people.
- Ostracism was a practice in the democracy of Athens that had the purpose of protecting the democratic system. It was used to deliver the Athenians from citizens who had accumulated excessive political power and had become dangerous. Once a year all the Athenians gathered in the assembly and every citizen, according to the tribe to which he belonged, left a piece of a clay vessel on which was written the name of a citizen whom he wished to ostracize. For someone to be ostracized, his name had to be found on more than 6000 of the clay pieces. Initially ostracism from the city lasted ten years, but later it was reduced to five.
- Black Broth was the main food of the warriors of Sparta. The dish consists of pig's blood, salt, vinegar, honey and crumbs of barley bread boiled all together so as to form a watery gruel. It gave strength and energy to the warrior, but it was completely tasteless.
- The Apella was the assembly of the citizens of Sparta, but it was not completely democratic as in Athens. Its democratic nature was significantly limited by the process, which did not allow the citizens to submit a proposal or counter proposal of a law or candidates for election to any office. The Apella was only competent to approve or reject proposals from the Senate, a council of wise old men, and its members were only allowed to speak if approved. Essentially, the wise old men of the Senate made all of the city's critical decisions such as treaties, alliances or declaration of war, and then they asked the Apella to accept or reject their proposals.
- The daily wage of an unskilled worker in Ancient Athens was 1 drachma, which would buy about ten kilos of wheat or a rich meal in a tavern at the market. A skilled worker received 1.5 drachmas as a daily wage and a senior judge received 3 drachmas. A simple, frugal meal with meat cost about half a drachma and a pair of shoes of pig leather, about 8 drachmas.
- Sparta had two equally powerful kings. In the case of a military campaign, one of the kings went out with the Spartan army, while the other remained behind to govern the city and defend it if it was attacked. In war, the king had the powers of a commander in chief over the other generals. He could negotiate a truce and he fought in the first line of the right flank, surrounded by his honorary royal guard of three hundred men. He had the power of life and death over his soldiers, including the citizens.
- The basic warship at that time was called a trireme, so called from the three banks of rows it had, one above the other, on both the right and left sides. It was constructed from fir, oak or pine wood, and was about 130 feet long, 15 feet wide, and six feet high. It also had a central mast with a large sail to take advantage of favorable winds, but for military maneuvers and in sea battles, only the oars were used. The crew consisted of 170 rowers in the thee banks, the petty officer who gave orders, the lookout who guided their course, the signalman who controlled communications, the officers, the soldiers on the deck who protected the ship, the captain who commanded it and the helmsman. The latter was perhaps the most important member of the crew since, with his large double oars, he steered the boat from the stern. The trireme had a raised, curved stern to look like the tail of a fish. To the fore, on its prow, it usually had a statue or emblem with two large eyes painted below it so that it looked like a sea monster, to frighten the enemy. Its most important weapon was the ram, a pointed metal extension about 2 yards long attached to the bottom part of the prow, pointing in the same direction as the line of sailing. The ram weighed about 450 pounds and was made of metal, usually copper or bronze, and was used in the famous ramming technique, i.e. to hit the other ship, open a hole in its wooden side, and sink it.
- The usual travelling speed for a warship of that era was about 2 nautical miles an hour with the sail and 4 with the oars. If the wind was favorable, they could get up to a speed of about 7 nautical miles with a combination of oars and sail. But when they had to attack, the rhythm of rowing increased and, without the sail, the ship could go at 8 miles an hour. For a few yards, just before ramming, the ship could reach a speed of 10 miles an hour with only the oars and in a calm sea, but this exhausted the rowers.
- Ten thousand drachmas corresponded to ten years of wages for a senior public servant or thirty years of wages for an unskilled worker. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 1 | Two things happened the year I turned eleven: my father died and I became friends with my first professional chef, a guy named Jacques.
My mother, distressed at my sadness over the loss of my father, tried to cure it with the one thing she knew I still loved: an extraordinary meal. One day, after she closed her shop, she announced that we wouldn't be going home to have dinner with her new husband, Hugo, and my baby sister. Instead we were going to the restaurant in the same complex of shops as her own, Chez Jacques.
"It is almost impossible to get a table," my mother said, smiling conspiratorially. "But why don't you and I go, just the two of us?"
I smiled for the first time in weeks. A night out alone with my mother? At an exclusive restaurant? It was like Christmas had come early.
As we approached Chez Jacques, my mother whispered, "Let me do the talking. They say the chef is a lunatic."
We were greeted at the door by Mercedes Quillacq, a voluptuous blond Spanish woman in her midforties. I had never met her but she greeted my mother as if they were old friends, and she seated us with a flourish that implied we were honored guests. The restaurant was rustic and simple. I would later learn that Jacques had built the entire establishment himself and that the dining room was actually the first floor of the family home. There were maybe twenty seats and an open plan kitchen, which was unusual for the time. There was no menu, just a set meal for the night. You ate what Jacques prepared, and you paid a hefty price for the pleasure.
From my seat at the table I could see Jacques at work in the kitchen: short and muscular, he wore a white chef's jacket with short sleeves and sweated with the force of a man who was all at once chef, sous-chef, and dishwasher. In one pot, he cooked pasta. In another, he made green beans. The industrial oven churned out culinary masterpieces, seemingly on its own. Now there's a platter of caramel pork. Look, there's a camembert en chemise (a version of brie en croute). And is that a roast duck? Watching Jacques cook for an entire restaurant, alone and happy in his kitchen, was like going to the circus and watching a master juggler spin a hundred plates. I was mesmerized.
I quickly learned that while the food was indeed legendary, part of what kept Chez Jacques packed was the show he put on. You did not choose to eat at Chez Jacques. Jacques chose you.
Ten minutes after we sat down, the door opened. A well-dressed man walked in and greeted Jacques, whose eyes immediately narrowed.
"Get out!" he snarled.
The man was understandably startled and tried to politely introduce himself. "Uh, je suis Monsieur Veysette…."
"Who sent you?"
"Uh…"
"Get out!" Jacques yelled, and so the man did as he asked and left.
My mother and I sat in silence, watching the drama unfold with both amusement and awe. My pleasure in being there grew, just knowing that we had been lucky to be let in the front door.
A few minutes later, another couple arrived.
"Who sent you?" Jacques barked.
"No one. We saw…"
"Welcome, welcome," Jacques said, suddenly switching to the warm tone of a mâitre'd in a famed Parisian bistro. "Mercedes, please see to it that they get the best table!"
My mother whispered to me, "Chef Jacques is known for kicking even the most elite residents of Andorra out of his restaurant. He takes great pleasure in telling the richest people in town to go screw themselves, but the food is so good, they always come back." She went on to explain that Jacques was ex–French Legion and he wasn't impressed with power. He'd survived the Battle of Dien Bien Phu; he didn't care about the vice-president of the local hydroelectric company or a retired British footballer. Naturally, the spectacle only made Chez Jacques more of a destination. "Whatever you do," my mother warned, "don't ask for salt."
When the dishes arrived, it was clear that we were being presented with more than a meal: this was a gift. The salad was composed as if Jacques had spent the afternoon in the garden, picking each green leaf himself. The coq au vin was so rich and satisfying that I had to resist the urge to lick the plate when I was done. When the meal was over, Jacques sent over not two small bowls of chocolate mousse, but nearly a tub of the stuff. My eyes widened at the heft of it; then I quickly and happily polished off the whole dish.
Jacques walked over to the table just as I was shoveling the last heaping spoon of mousse into my mouth. He looked pleased.
"The young man has a good appetite," he said, winking at me.
"C'est trop, Monsieur Jacques," I replied, respectfully. And it was—the very best meal I'd ever had.
"Do you want a tour of the factory?" Jacques asked, gesturing for me to follow him to the kitchen.
My mother nodded her permission and I eagerly followed Jacques back to the kitchen and propped myself onto a barstool for a better view. I pointed at the salads Jacques was making.
"How did you get the vinaigrette so creamy?" I asked.
He smiled at the question. "That's a secret," he said. "Come back one day and I'll show you."
The next day after school, instead of heading to the stockroom above my mother's boutique, I went to Chez Jacques. I sat on the same barstool, eating bowl after bowl of baba au rhum, and listened as he told me stories about his years in the military.
Jacques was what was called a titi Parisien, a kind of scrappy, working-class guy who grew up on the not-fancy streets of Paris, like Robert De Niro in New York. He spent his career as a parachutist with the French army and had done tours of duty in Vietnam, Egypt, and Algeria. I learned more about history from him than I did from any schoolbook.
"You've read about the coalition between Germany, France, and Great Britain against Egypt when they tried to nationalize the Suez Canal?" he asked as he rubbed a leg of lamb with salt for that evening's meal.
I had never heard of the Suez Canal, but I nodded my head vigorously in the hopes that he'd keep talking and serving me sweets.
"Alors. Each country had their own black market of goods," Jacques explained. "Crates of everything from caviar to licorice. Well, one day, we heard that the British had gotten ahold of some fresh vegetables, so we traded with them—a crate of whiskey for a crate of arugula, endives, and romaine. They just wanted to get drunk! But we said, 'The French must eat the way God intended man to eat!' "
He laughed so hard at the memory that he had to brace himself on the counter. "Can you imagine? Trading whiskey for some greens? But that is war, young man. That is what war is really about: going after the thing you didn't value until you were in the position to lose it."
I was only a kid but I thought I understood what he meant, because I had, that afternoon, spent one of the happiest days in recent memory. The school year loomed ahead, and I was sure that nothing would top the few hours I had spent watching Jacques cook and listening to his stories about parachuting out of planes and conducting secret maneuvers in foreign lands.
My mother worked six days a week at her boutique, but she cooked like a Michelin-starred chef every single night. The table was always set with fresh flowers and a beautiful tablecloth. She shopped every day at the markets. We began each meal with a delicious starter: maybe an onion soup or a big rustic salad made of blanched and raw vegetables, apple, avocado, radishes, potato, haricots verts, corn—all from a roadside market, not the grocery store. For the main course, there would be something cooked à la minute, like a pepper steak, or something she'd prepped since the morning, like a roast shoulder of lamb. There was always dessert too: a fruit dish, like pears in red wine, on the weekdays and something more elaborate, like a flan or a mixed berry tart, on her day off. It was a badge of honor for my mother that at a time when women were asking if they could have it all, she did.
That evening when she came to collect me, her eyes went straight to the dirty dessert bowl sitting next to me. She knew me well enough to know that there was no way I had eaten just one serving. I could tell she was annoyed at what was certain to be an enormous bill and at my rudeness in ruining my appetite for the dinner she'd prepared at home.
But when my mother asked Jacques for the bill, throwing me an impatient glare, he just waved her off.
"No charge, madame," he said. "The boy has been washing dishes all day. It is I who should pay him." Then he winked at me and smiled.
This was, needless to say, a lie for my protection, and the pure tenderness of the gesture almost made me cry.
"Come back anytime," Jacques said. I wondered if he meant it or if he was just being polite.
"Tomorrow?" I asked, shyly.
"Why not?" he answered.
"Will there be chocolate mousse the next time?" I asked, feeling bolder.
Jacques laughed, a full-bodied laugh that I would get to know well. And my mother, who in those days did not laugh very often, laughed too.
"There is always chocolate mousse at Chez Jacques," he said.
Proust had his madeleine and because of Jacques, I have my mousse. Every time I dig into a bowl of that chocolate velvet, I am a kid again, running to Chez Jacques after school. It is the taste of friendship. It is the taste of belly laughs, and war stories, and the memory of a man who could jump out of planes and make a leg of lamb with equal amounts of skill and ardor. But more than anything, chocolate mousse is the taste of being welcomed; of Chez Jacques, where for me, the door was always open.
In 1961, Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier came to Paris to make a movie about jazz, love, and possibility. In the film, Paul Newman plays a jazz musician who sees the most beautiful girl, played by Diahann Carroll, while walking down the street. She's not interested in him, but she takes a liking to his friend, Sidney Poitier, and it just so happens that her pal, Joanne Woodward, thinks Paul Newman is kind of cute. So the pairs switch around and go about the business of falling in love, but in the end, each of the men and each of the women must go off on their own path. There is no happily ever after for these couples, only happy to have met you.
Not too long after that movie debuted, my parents met in the south of France. In time, they would do their own switching around of partners and falling in and out of love. But where the lovers in Paris Blues had only themselves to worry about, my parents' choices affected me too, and I felt shuffled and tossed about by all of the changes. Despite all that would come afterward, the first five years of my life were so happy and bright that decades cannot diminish the sunshine and warmth that I feel when I look back at that time. My parents' greatest gift to me was this: a model of love that was so big, it felt like the stuff of movies and songs. It wasn't an endless love, but it was a gift all the same.
This is where it began: on a road lined with olive trees, on a bright summer day in Cagnes-sur-Mer, the largest suburb of the city of Nice. My mother, Monique, was waiting for the No. 44 bus. She had golden brown skin, the skin of a girl who has spent her whole life in sunny places—Morocco and the south of France. She was tall and thin, with hair as black as a raven that hit her back at an alluring spot. Her eyes were rimmed with kohl; her lips were a deep ruby red. My mother was just an eighteen-year-old shopgirl, but she had mastered the look of the jet set. She carried herself with confidence—even a slight arrogance—that men found irresistible. She was a prize, and she knew it.
My father, André, was ten years her senior. He was handsome and he knew it, the golden boy and oldest son of a farming family in Nîmes. He was born at the dawn of the Second World War. Like many in France, his family suffered greatly through the wars and he was determined to make a success of himself. He never wanted to feel hunger or deprivation again.
My father saw my mother standing by the bus stop wearing a miniskirt that showed off her long legs, and he was taken with her immediately. He was driving in his most prized possession, a red Peugeot convertible.
"Hello, beautiful," he said. "Where are you off to?"
My mother explained that she was going into town to meet a friend, to see a movie.
My father dismissed this suggestion out of hand. "You are going to sit in a dark room with a group of strangers on this gorgeous day? That's madness."
"What else do you have in mind?" my mother asked.
"Let's stroll the coast together," he said.
She gladly canceled her plans and he took her to Monaco.
My father was charming. My mother was daring. And that's how it all began. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 2 | My father was the pride of his family. He had worked his way through the ranks of the Banque Nationale de Paris, and had done so well that he was named president of the Cagnes-sur-Mer branch before his thirtieth birthday. He was married once, in his early twenties, to a girl from back home, but the marriage ended before they had children. He was single and well-off on the French Riviera, and my father enjoyed playing the role of a bad boy.
He took my mother to all of the most fabulous parties. The people they rubbed elbows with are like a who's who of France in the 1960s: Over there is the actor Alain Delon, famed for his recent turn as Ripley in Purple Noon, the French movie adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. Here comes Brigitte Bardot, all blond hair and bosoms, talking animatedly about animal rights. Mingling with them are high-ranking government officials who have traveled to the south to take part in the fun and sun.
Françoise Sagan, the young novelist whose Bonjour Tristesse had been an international bestseller, was a frequent visitor to St. Tropez during those years. My parents would see her at parties. She grew up not far away in the region of Carjac, in the southwest of France. She was not much older than my mother, and she represented a new generation of women that my mother would be a part of, women who were lauded for their brains as well as their beauty.
On Sundays, my parents picnicked at the beach, and my father quickly discovered that my mother was a wonderful cook. It was not so much that she was domestically inclined (she had already informed him that she intended to continue to work after marriage and that she never wanted to be financially dependent on a man), but for my mother, cooking well was a matter of aesthetics, what she saw as an indication of good breeding and taste. She was the type of person who wanted everything to be just so, so she practiced and read books about cooking and perfected each recipe until she was proud.
A few months after their first meeting, my father proposed, and two years after they were married, I was born. My parents moved into a little house in St. Tropez. It was a stucco house with a garden out back and for a while, a different fairy tale took root. My father continued to succeed at work. As soon as I was old enough for daycare, my mother got a job at a boutique in St. Tropez. Although she was only in her early twenties, she was capable and by the time I was two years old, she was named directrice, manager of the store. They were happy with their careers and happy with each other, and for the first few years of my life, all was well. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 3 | My father was a peculiar mixture of traits. On the one hand, he was politically conservative, as one might expect of someone who had built his career in finance. When it came to his work, he was disciplined, focused, and unwavering. But at home, he was a different man. His whole life away from the bank was the opposite of everything the business world represented. At work, he was serious, traditional in dress and demeanor. At home, it was the future and the fringes that most interested him. He loved the circus. He loved technology, especially photography, and he was always taking pictures when I was a baby. By the time I was a toddler, he had upgraded from a simple Leica to an early version of a Super 8 motion picture camera. He loved sports, and every Saturday morning, we took off for the great outdoors. In the summer, it was the beach, where he taught me how to swim and snorkel and fish. In the winter, he hiked, climbing snowy mountains with athletic determination.
My father had a set routine in the morning: shower, shave, dress (he favored a dark suit and a light shirt, conservative but still sharp), eat breakfast, brush teeth, slap on aftershave, kiss son (that would be me), and go. As a chef, my brain holds a catalogue of scents, and the first, most powerful one is this: my father's aftershave, accompanied by the cool tingle and slight damp of his cheek as he wrapped me in his arms and kissed me goodbye before he left for work.
In the evening, when he returned, my father would change out of his suit into a plain T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops and go out back to work in his garden. Tending to the garden was one of his greatest pleasures. It was a way of transforming the stress of the day into something alive and growing. He often said, "I am proud to be a paysan," using the term for a simple country farmer, like his ancestors.
Though my mother's cooking ruled my childhood, my earliest food memories are not of eating her food. When I was very small, I ate from my father's garden: tomatoes and fennel in the late summer, steamed potato and eggplant in the fall, snap peas sautéed in butter and salt in the spring.
But the dish I remember most of all was not from any garden. Having read an article that said you can exponentially increase children's intelligence by feeding them brains, my mother tried night after night to get me to eat fricasseed lamb brains. And night after night, I perfected the art of throwing the brains across the room, using my teaspoon as a catapult. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 4 | My father had many interests, but none was as great as his passion for jazz. Nearly a million African Americans served in World War II, and jazz was the music they brought with them. While jazz had been popular as early as the 1920s, it was really in this period that the form of the music—innovative, revolutionary, a pastiche of history and culture—reflected the cultural moment so powerfully. All throughout Europe, jazz was the music of the Resistance and it symbolized hope, freedom, and a joy that felt precious and fleeting. As the German pianist Jutta Hipp once explained, "Americans won't be able to understand this, but to us, jazz is some kind of religion. We really had to fight for it and I remember nights when we didn't go down to the bomb shelter because we listened to [jazz] records. We just had the feeling that they were not our enemies and even though the bombs crashed around us…we felt safe."
My father came from a musical family. His father, Antonin, was just sixteen when he was called to serve in World War I. He rode a horse and played the trumpet for the cavalry, blasting out the short melodies that were the military's signals to their soldiers. The bugle calls were loud and soldiers relied on them to carry messages above the noise and confusion of the battlefield.
Antonin survived the war and married my grandmother Emilienne, who played the violin. They both loved music, opera especially, and it was a love that sustained them through some of France's toughest times. Antonin and Emilienne had five children, including my father, when World War II broke out and Antonin was called to play the trumpet for the army again.
France was very poor and the south of France was poorer still. When my grandfather returned to his home in Carpentras after the war, he found that he couldn't make a living from his farm anymore, so he moved the family to Nîmes, where he found a job as an accountant for a mining company. My father was the only child to pick up an instrument. He chose to play trumpet, just as his father did. My father went to university and all throughout his college years continued to study music at the conservatory.
In France at this time, a year of military service was mandatory. My father took his trumpet with him into service and it was there, as a soldier, that he fell in love with jazz. The music, which he heard on the radio and in the dance halls that the soldiers frequented on their furloughs, became the soundtrack to my parents' short, passionate marriage.
My mother loved to throw parties and my father was a natural-born entertainer, so they threw lots and lots of parties. When we were happy, our house was filled with music—Chet Baker on the turntable or my father, trumpet in hand, captivating a small crowd of friends with the words and rhythms of Louis Armstrong. We were a young French family—Maman, Papa, and myself—and our home was a salon. By the time I was four years old, our home had become the center of their social circle. There were parties every weekend and these are some of my earliest memories: happy people, my mother cooking, my father playing the trumpet, rooms that smelled of drink and smoke, long nights filled with music and laughter. Every night, just before the parties started to ramp up, my parents would slip away from the festivities to put me to bed. Mine was just a plain wooden cot, but I liked to pretend it was a rocket ship.
Later, when things were bad, and later still, when bad went to worse, food became my main source of comfort, my most consistent pleasure. But in the beginning, when I was too small to read or write, when I didn't know left from right or how to tie my own shoes, there was this: my mother, beaming at me with her eyes, bright and starry, and my father serenading me to sleep with Louis Armstrong on his horn.
I don't know when my father began to stray, but once he did, the affairs were frequent and egregious. My mother is always careful to tell me that she was "no angel either"—she too liked to flirt, and perhaps she took it even further with an affair or two of her own. But my father's assignations broke her down. "It's not that cheating changes the other person," she has explained to me. "Your father was still very much the same man he always was: smart, handsome, funny. It's how it changed me that I could not take."
I think I understand what she means, because I remember the shift. My mother, who was once all hugs and smiles, became pinched and closed off. Always a woman who liked to sing around the house, she replaced songs with screams and shouts. I rarely saw her in tears, but she always looked as if she'd just been crying. Her eyes would be red, her mascara would run, and the cat eyes she drew on with liner to elongate the almond shape of her eyes would look shaky, as if she'd drawn them with trembling hands. It was scary, the way I learned how people could change. I look back at it now and I want to say, "It was nothing. Relationships fall apart. Life is complicated. People get divorced." But it wasn't nothing. It wasn't nothing then, it isn't nothing now. I can still remember the terror of not being able to breathe as they argued, the way my lungs would contract as if a monster was sitting on my chest and wouldn't move: all of those nights when I was supposed to be sleeping, but I couldn't close my eyes for fear that the world as I knew it would end before I could open them again.
During this time, my father got a promotion and we moved from St. Tropez to a town on the coast called Les Sables d'Olonne. I have few happy memories of that place. The night that I understood, without a doubt, that my parents' marriage was ending, I was in my room, pretending to be asleep. My mother's voice rose to a scream while my father's stayed low, trying to keep her from losing control. It didn't work.
"Combien de temps…?" she shouted. "I knew…how dare you…" There was an edge to her voice, one I could only compare to the sound the dog down the street made when I poked a stick between the slats of the fence. And then the china began to crash. Terrified, I cracked open my door and peeked into the dining room.
My parents argued a lot, but this was different. It felt as though all of the bad feelings between them had finally exploded and everything was burning to the ground. There was no going back. My mother was unloading their wedding china from the vitrine and throwing it at the wall behind my father as he stood there, helpless. Even at five, I knew how proud my mother was of her porcelain. It was shocking to watch it come to such a violent end.
By now, I was standing in the hall. My father had seen me leaning against the wall in my pajamas and pleaded with my mother, whose back was to me: "Stop! You'll traumatize Eric!" he yelled. My mother launched a tureen at his head and then crumpled into tears.
My father guided me back into my room and tucked me in, holding me as I cried in confusion. "It's going to be fine," he repeated as he smoothed my hair. "Sometimes your mother gets upset." It felt like hours until I fell asleep.
The next morning, my father woke me up for breakfast.
"It's just the two of us," he said. "Your mother's not feeling well."
When I said that she seemed more angry than sick, he pinched my cheek and told me that one day I would learn more than I might ever want to know about women and their bad tempers.
He didn't mention what had happened the night before. Instead, he apologized for a few days before when he'd read me a book about a famous bullfighter. This was something upsetting that he could actually discuss. Growing up in Nîmes, a southern city with deep Roman and Spanish influences, my father had gone to bullfights in the ancient arena. He always talked about the day we'd see our first bullfight there. But a few pages into the book, I told him I would never go. Inside were pictures of men on horses lancing bulls with beribboned spears while the bulls gored the horses' sides, and then pictures of the bulls' corpses being dragged ceremoniously through the dust, trailing blood. The image was meant to be triumphant, but when I saw it, I started to cry. How could they be so unfair? How could you treat an animal with such cruelty?
My dad told me he couldn't imagine how such a mischievous kid could be so sensitive to other people's pain. "Next time you torture your babysitter to the point that she doesn't want to come back, I want you to remember what you're saying," he said, laughing.
He set our dishes in the sink, put on his suit jacket and tie, and left for the bank. I stood on the balcony and watched him get in his car. After he drove away, my mother came out and asked what I was doing.
It was summer, so I didn't have to go to school. Instead, I spent the day watching from the hallway as my mother silently packed a suitcase.
We didn't leave that night. Or the next. Instead, my parents performed fake-happy conversations at the dinner table for weeks on end. As sweet as they tried to be with me, I could still feel the seriousness and tension weighing down every word. I could see the pain in their eyes and hear the strain in their voices. During those meals, a heavy sadness filled the house, quiet and intense. My family was broken. So, when they called me into the living room and sat me down on the green velvet sofa, I was prepared.
My father fidgeted with a crystal paperweight on the Chinese coffee table, whose carved legs served as an off-road track for my model cars. "Your mother and I are going to try living apart for a while," he said.
I asked them what "a while" meant and they both laughed.
"It'll be good for you because you'll be able to travel," my mother said. She was wearing the smile she used when telling me that the doctor's needle was going to help me, so I should just relax. "You can spend time with me and with your father…."
"Until perhaps we get back together," he said, looking at my mother hopefully.
"Yes," she chimed in. "Until then. Perhaps. D'accord?"
My mother began to cry. Then my father too. This was the worst sign yet. I joined them.
Perhaps if they hadn't been so happy to begin with, the end would have been less heartbreaking. But it was like a part of each of us died in that apartment the day my mother and I moved out. My father, who was an expert at putting on a sunny appearance, did the best job of seeming unchanged. But in the years that followed my parents' divorce, I would come to see his loss, his grief. For my mother and I, the pain was more immediate and easier to see. My mother, who was so beautiful, became like a model who has smiled so many times, her smile is frozen, patently fake. Even when she seemed to be in a good mood, she showed a studied grin that did not match the faraway look in her eyes. As for me, I went from being a happy kid to a kind of pint-sized depressive. From the time I was five until I went away to cooking school and for many years after, I was rarely truly happy—just different degrees of sad. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 5 | It was late afternoon when my father drove my mother and me to our new home in St. Tropez, an investment property he owned there. He was dressed in his weekend casual: a polo shirt, a pair of khakis, leather loafers. It was as if we were all on our way to a country getaway, the way my father made cheerful conversation the whole drive. He rolled down the window and breathed in deeply. "Can you smell it?" he said. "The orange trees, the lemon trees? Look over there, a vineyard. Oh, it's Bandol. Provence makes the best rosé in the world, that's why the Provençal are so happy."
Every time my father turned around to talk to me on the drive to St. Tropez, which was often, he would take his eyes off the road and my mother would flinch, sucking in a gust of breath as if she half-expected the car to swerve at any moment and wrap around a tree.
He told me that he would write to me often and that he wanted me to write back—even if it was just a picture on a postcard. It was 1971, and no one used the phone to keep in touch. Phone calls were for short local conversations. My parents called each other on the aqua and white rotary phone to confirm meeting times and to give each other brief reminders, their sentences quick and precise.
In all the years of their marriage and all the years after, I was never summoned to the phone to speak to my mother or father, wasn't prompted to pick up the receiver and tell my grandmother that I loved her or tell my grandfather that I missed him, even though I did. My parents never called their parents on the phone unless there was an emergency. It was too expensive and even though they were young and successful, they came from modest means and they had modest ways.
My father swung around, one hand on the wheel, and tried to catch my eyes. He wanted me to know that he meant business. "Let me hear from you, Eric," he told me. "We must stay close. You are my only son, the last Ripert." Then he grinned. "I am the great Ripert, but you are the last. Just because we are not eating breakfast together and having dinner together all the time, it does not change anything. We must not let this distance become a wedge between us. We will write letters and when you come on vacation, we will have grand adventures, like Zorro."
I perked up at this: no one was better than my father at playing games of pretend. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 6 | When we arrived at the apartment building, I looked around, confused.
"Where is the house?" I asked.
"It is not a house," my mother said. "It's an apartment. You'll like it. The school is just down the street and the building is full of kids. Come, Eric, let's look."
She gave me her tight new smile, and I could tell that she was trying to sell the place to me, which was surprising. In France, parents do not cater to children. You can walk through a playground, a department store, or any bakery and you will hear a hundred times, "C'est moi qui décide." It is me who decides. French parents expect a sense of hierarchy and a respect from their children. You give them the answers and they accept them. But as we stood outside our new home, I could feel my mother softening, and because it was so uncharacteristic and her eyes were so sad, it seemed like she was not only giving in, but giving up.
My father leaned in to kiss her on both cheeks and she stiffened in his embrace. Then he bent down to embrace me. Grabbing me into his arms, he lifted me as if I were a plane and he spun me around in the air.
I jutted my arms forward and straightened my legs and announced, "I'm Batman!"
"Very good!" my father said. "Are you flying?"
"Yes," I said, as he moved me through the air. "I'm flying!"
When he put me down, I could see in his eyes, in the curve of his shoulders, and in the downturn of his lips that he was tired too. "Keep flying, Eric," he said, but his words felt hollow and halfhearted. Then he walked back to the car and as he put his key in the door, a puzzled look crossed his face, as if he were an amnesiac who wasn't sure where he had put his wife and son, as if he were a man who had misplaced his whole life. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 7 | At the door of the apartment building, two men stood smoking cigarettes, and they looked at my mother hungrily. She cut the ogling off with a single devastating "don't even think about it" glare.
I couldn't tell what she was thinking as she climbed the stairs to our new second-floor flat. She seemed at sea, like one of those teenage girls in a French New Wave movie. They were beautiful, these girls, and I liked to look at their pictures on the big posters outside of the cinema in town. But they also looked spacey and unsure, as if they themselves had no idea how the movie might end.
My mother had always looked older than her age, but on this night, she looked very young. Instead of her usual impeccably coiffed waves, her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, and her face was scrubbed free of makeup.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who thought my mother looked like a teenager, because as she stood at the landing of the second floor, the door to a nearby apartment flew open and a woman called out, "Giselle, I hear you on the steps! I told you, no going out on a school night!"
When my mother turned to look at her, the woman said, "Excuse me, I'm sorry, mademoiselle." Then, upon seeing me, "I mean, madame." The woman had changed her tone, not wanting to insult my mom by suggesting that she was an unwed mother.
But it was exactly onto this precipice that my mother had fallen. Too young to be a madame, but too much the divorcée to be a mademoiselle. She had been the first of her friends to be married and now was the first to get divorced. She was twenty-six years old. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 8 | We spent just a few months in that studio apartment in St. Tropez. Then my mother got the opportunity to open her own boutique, so we moved to a small town called Revel. We moved into the guesthouse of a farm, which I liked much better than the noisy apartment building, and because she was new in town, there was no babysitter. My mother kept me close under her wing. We came home for dinner and to sleep, but we spent our afternoons and weekends at my mother's boutique.
My mother, who had a discerning eye for fashion and a knack for putting even affordable clothes together, was quickly a success in Revel as the local women clamored to see what she brought back from her shopping trips to Paris. It was, I think, some small consolation to my mother. Her marriage may have failed, but she had not failed at her goal of financial independence. My mother took me with her on trips to Paris, and she made sure that I was well dressed and well groomed when I went to visit my father every five or six weeks. Even at that age, I knew how I appeared—the only child of two well-off parents, shuttled back and forth in first-class train cars, eating meals at Michelin-starred restaurants. I was, my cousins joked, a little prince. But in the novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the little prince is not notable because he has noble blood. The entire throughline of the story is that he is lonely, and inhabits a "mysterious place, the land of tears."
When I began first grade in Revel, I made a game of getting through the entire school day without saying a word. I shrugged when the teachers asked me questions, shook my head "no" when the other kids invited me to play at recess. After school, I stayed in the back of my mother's boutique until she could drive us home to the little farmhouse. It was there that I released the energy that had been pent up all day. I bounced off the walls of the storeroom while I was supposed to be doing my homework and refused to write letters to my father like I was repeatedly asked.
My mother had a hard time getting me to talk to or be affectionate with her. I blamed her for my parents' breakup. It was she, after all, who had broken the wedding china, and who did all the yelling and screaming. When I was feeling mean, I would ask her, "Why did you send my father away?" and watch as tears welled up. She would look at me as if I'd punched her, and the pained look on her face gave me a kind of satisfaction. I studied her grimaces the same way I looked on as insects squirmed when I took them apart, wing by wing.
After my parents' divorce, the only time I felt close to my mother was in the kitchen. From the second she put on her apron, I followed her every move. My anger disappeared and I was finally able to calm down and focus as I watched her in that tiny room, making meals that I could tell were intended to make me happy. I was so entranced that I'd even answer her questions about what I'd done in school. I listened closely as she told me stories about her childhood in Morocco, how she learned to cook French dishes from her mother, and the cookbooks by great chefs that she bought as soon as she started earning her own money. My mother was never more expressive of her love than when she was in the kitchen. She was reserved by nature, and while she hugged and kissed me plenty, she was never one to smother me with physical affection. But she made it clear that everything she prepared in the kitchen was done with the hopes of pleasing me. She reminded me that I'd always loved to eat: "When you were a baby," she'd tell me, "you drank so much formula that we had to go to the doctor to make sure you were normal. Even he was surprised!" Sitting on my chair in that tiny farm kitchen felt intimate and special. That room was sacred.
Although I wasn't allowed to help with the meal proper, my mother gave me little things to do. She let me flick on the light of the oven to see how her cake was rising. She gave me balls of dough to shape into deformed loaves of "bread." I was fascinated by the act of cooking—how sugar, butter, apples, and dough magically transformed into a richly burnished tarte tatin. (Flipping it from hot skillet to plate was another favorite magic trick.) I loved the craftsmanship—how my mother artfully folded thin pieces of rice paper around ground pork, crab, and vegetables to create delicate, transparent spring rolls, which the French called nem. When I'd ask why she put them in a cold sauté pan filled with oil before turning on the heat, she'd explain that it made them crisper and fully cooked inside. Later, as my teeth shattered the golden rice-paper wrapper, I'd ask her to explain it again so I could make them myself one day. I loved the constant motion of cooking the way some kids loved sports. She spent hours assembling her couscous, starting with the mise en place. Next, she began her lamb tagine, flavored with the peel of lemons that she buried in a jar of salt until they became moist and candy-like. While the tagine simmered in its cone-topped earthen pot, she rolled damp semolina between her palms until fine, fluffy blond grains of couscous showered into the bowl, ready to be steamed. I was fixated on whatever it was her hands were doing as she spoke, the slow, intricate dance that always ended deliciously. It was an incredible show.
In the dining room, she taught me to set the table with ironed napkins and good china and silver, even for just the two of us. It didn't occur to me until I began working in restaurants myself years later that she was educating me in what she called l'art de la table, teaching me the importance of elegant presentation because she believed that it made the food taste even better. To her, the entire meal was a creative act, an expression of refinement and taste. There were always flowers, candles, and a starched tablecloth, whether we were eating crab soufflé or onglet and frites. We even changed plates between courses like they did in restaurants. I grew up thinking that everyone ate this way.
Besides spoiling me at the table, my mother also indulged my appetite at the supermarket. I'd tell her exactly which jambon de Paris and yogurt I wanted from the shelves. I was extremely picky about my favorite variety of Petit Suisse cheese, not to mention the brand of mini-toasts that I had for breakfast, along with the butter and jam. She usually rushed me past the cookie aisle, but I didn't mind; there was always something better to eat at home. For me, watching her make pastry was pure magic—and then, of course, there was the pastry itself. But once the dishes had been washed and the tarte tatin put away for tomorrow's snack, my anger at my mother and my hunger for my father returned.
After a reasonable mourning period, my mother began to date, and it wasn't long before it seemed like she was dating all the time. The babysitters who now sometimes watched me after school until my mother closed the shop were staying long after I'd gone to bed.
The men my mother dated took no interest in me, nor I in them. One guy was always slurring and stumbling, a glass in his hand. Another I saw from my spying station upstairs; he cornered my mom in the hallway and grabbed her by the neck until she screamed and wrestled herself free and kicked him out of our apartment. And while I would have liked to spend more time with the famous rugby player she dated for a few months, the truth is that I didn't mind being sent to stay with my grandfather and grandmother—his second wife, Maguy—for long weekends and short vacations.
On the rare days my mom didn't have a date, I would head to the boutique after school and wait, bored out of my mind, until she could drive us home. One day when I arrived at my mother's boutique, there was a man at the counter, showing her pictures of clothes in a big binder.
"Eric, this is Hugo," she said, patting her hair. "He's a distributor for a sportswear company."
Hugo shook my hand, even though I was only six. He looked like Charles Bronson, pre-mustache.
"Your mother says you're a real gourmand," he said.
"That's because she's the best cook in Revel!"
Hugo was there after school another time, and then another, usually with something for me from the bakery in his town. He definitely came across as a bad boy, and with his pomaded hair and louche demeanor, the Charles Bronson resemblance didn't seem like a coincidence. He talked admiringly about gangster movies and I could tell that he tried to cultivate the air of a tough guy.
He invited us out one Sunday for a picnic in the countryside and picked us up in his Mercedes. I had been expecting sandwiches, but he unpacked a tablecloth and set it with real plates, glasses, and silverware. My mother was impressed, and I was happy that she was happy. Over roast pork loin, he explained socialism to me in a way that made sense. I told him how I used to argue with my teachers about the Vietnam War, and Hugo told me that the Vietnamese were fighting for communism, which was kind of like socialism, so it sounded good to me.
After we were finished with lunch, Hugo patiently tried to teach me to fish using leftover baguette. He wasn't my dad—no one, to my mind, was as cool as my dad. But at least he was making an effort.
When he dropped us off, he asked if he could take us mushroom hunting the next weekend. I could see from my mother's expression that she wanted not just a boyfriend, but someone who would be a kind of father figure to me. I silently vowed to give Hugo a chance.
The mushroom hunt was followed by a quail hunt. I was excited to be out in the forest, but I was still just a kid. I didn't know how to follow Hugo silently and he yelled at me for making noise, scaring the birds away. It doesn't take long for a child to figure out how quickly the switch in an adult can flip. When you are small and nothing in the world is truly your choice, you learn to read the adults around you so that you can get what you want: their praise, their affection, their love. I began to see that with Hugo there was very little room for error on my part.
We all shared a love of fine food, and Hugo took my mother and me to the best restaurants in the region. By the time I was in first grade, I was already fond of cheese soufflé, filet en croute, foie gras, sole meunière, and stinky cheeses. By the end of the year, the three of us were living in an apartment above the store. My mother was happy for the first time in years, but my impression of Hugo had dimmed.
On Sunday, her one day off, my mom would stay in the bedroom with Hugo until lunchtime, at which point he would come out, knot his foulard, and march me in the direction of the local movie theater, about a mile away. It didn't matter if what was playing was appropriate for children; I was dropped at the curb and left to see Hugo-approved films like The Godfather and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which give me nightmares to this day.
My mother's business began to boom, which was fortunate because it turned out that Hugo was not the high roller he pretended to be. I could sense my mother's disappointment. She'd married a successful man, but he was unfaithful. She now had a faithful man, but he wasn't successful. She poured her energy into being successful enough for the both of them. Soon, she was able to open a second boutique in the nearby town of Castelnaudary, where I started at a new school.
I had grown jealous of Hugo, and I could tell he was jealous of me too. Now that he'd gotten what he wanted, a different side of him began to emerge. When we went hunting, he'd yell at me in front of my mother, telling me that my clumsiness was scaring away the animals. He'd say I'd never be a good fisherman, or that I was so dumb I couldn't find a wild mushroom if it was glued to my nose.
One weekend, we went into the mountains to go skiing. It was my first time on skis and I kept falling in the snow. Hugo would stand over me, laughing and saying, "You fall so often. Learning how to get up will be your most important skill." Each time, my mother, laughing along with him, reached out with her pole and helped me to my feet. But I began to wonder, what happens when my mother isn't there to pick me up?
When she praised my schoolwork, he criticized it. When she told me I was handsome, he'd say, "Maybe, but you should close your mouth. You look like a mongoloid." (His nickname for me was gagotte, which is a horrible French slur used to describe the mentally disabled.)
The only time Hugo and I were civil was at the dinner table.
Please pass the bread.
Yes, thank you!
This blanquette de veau is perfect, Monique.
It was a temporary truce, my mother's ironed linen napkins our white flag. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 9 | In St. Tropez, before my parents' divorce, my father had worked as the head of the bank in town. The town was crazy in the summer, rife with tourists and yachts full of partying celebrities, but in the winter, it felt more like a small village, where the residents could really mingle and get to know each other. Marcel Pagnol was a customer at my father's bank; over the years the two became quite friendly, and the friendship meant a great deal to my father. Pagnol was a legend in his own time: a novelist, a playwright, and a filmmaker, he was like John Updike, Tennessee Williams, and Woody Allen all rolled into one. He was the first French filmmaker to be elected to L'Académie Française. Founded in 1653 by the chief minister to King Louis XIII, L'Académie consists of just forty members who are known as immortels: the immortals. These forty men (back then, they were all men) rule on all matters of the French language, and it is their grave responsibility to guide and shape the evolution of the written and spoken word. Marcel Pagnol's membership in this academy was the equivalent of being knighted by the queen of England.
Pagnol quite liked my father, and he gifted him with an autographed copy of his most famous book, La Gloire de Mon Père, or The Glory of My Father. Although Pagnol was revered across the country as a cultural genius, in the south where he was born and eventually retired, he was known as the hero of the paysan, the working man. This was especially meaningful to my father, who prided himself on his humble background. My father cherished his autographed book and he would show it off to anyone who came over. Sometimes he took it to work to show it off to a client.
After the divorce, when my mother packed up our things, she got her revenge. She hid the book in a box and took it to our new home. The night my father realized the book was missing, I witnessed a rare display of fury from him. I could hear him screaming at my mother through the phone, but she refused to return it.
The Pagnol book was a trophy and my mother displayed it on the bookshelf with her favorite novels. Sometimes, I took it to school to show my teachers. Just having it in my backpack gave me a kind of courage.
At night was when I missed my father the most. I missed our ritual of stories and the tenderness of him tucking me in. On those nights when the ache of not having him in the house was the worst, I tucked the Pagnol book under my pillow, just to have some part of him next to me.
After a few months of living with Hugo, I began to feel like my mother had chosen her boyfriend over me and that she, like him, was merely tolerating my presence. To get back at her, the next time I went to see my dad, I took the Marcel Pagnol book from its place of honor and hid it in my suitcase.
I was so proud to have returned the beloved object to my father, who was happy I'd thought of him. (He must have known I'd stolen it from my mother, but he didn't let on.) But about a week into my visit, my mother called. She and my father got into a vicious argument about the book, with her using all of her diplomatic resources to get it back. Finally, she told him that if I didn't bring the book with me, I wouldn't be allowed home.
As I was packing for the drive back, my father handed me the Pagnol.
"I love this book, but apparently so does your mother; please take it back to her," he said.
I nodded, ashamed and embarrassed that my gift had been returned.
My father held me close. "It was lovely to see it again. Thank you, Eric. I'm counting on you to look after it for me."
I nodded and said that I would.
My father drove me to my mother's boutique and told me to wait in the car while he went in for what he knew would be a tongue lashing. After he left, it was my turn.
"I'm glad you've learned how to steal, Eric," my mother said when I got in. "I'm only going to warn you once: if you do that again, you won't live with me anymore. I must be able to trust you."
It was a funny word, trust. I loved my parents. With all of their shortcomings, I loved them both mightily. But if you asked me whom I trusted, I could not tell you. I wasn't sure I knew what that word meant. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 10 | It was not long before things began to sour between my mother and Hugo. He liked the flash life, but he didn't have the means to take care of my mother the way he did when they were first dating. That money—begged, borrowed, or stolen—was gone. Hugo's job disappeared too, so my mother took him on at her boutique. From their evening arguments, I could tell that Hugo wasn't the help to my mother's business that she hoped he might be.
At night, after she kissed me good night, my mother was careful to put on the record player, but I could still hear their heated conversations:
"Hugo, you are supposed to sell the clothes, not yourself."
"I am only flirting to flatter, my dearest," Hugo cooed. "Flattery encourages the customers to buy." It was his attempt at being seductive, and even just listening to him be so smarmy made me want to throw up.
My mother, I know, was sipping from a cup of tea. She had made herself a pot of verveine (lemon verbena) to calm her nerves; I could smell it steeping.
"Flatter the clothes, not the women," my mother sighed. "You say, 'Wow, you look beautiful in that dress,' or 'That is the height of sophistication, what's the occasion?' "
My mother had already left one man for cheating. She did not want to leave another. But more important, she had built her business herself, from the ground up. She was strong enough to deal with Hugo's flirting if it was harmless, but she would not abide his lack of work and how it was hurting our family income.
Their relationship shifted, and my mother no longer sent me to the movies on Sunday afternoon. She did not seem to have any interest in spending time alone with Hugo at all. So when she was not around, which was roughly Monday through Friday, from 3 P.M. until 8:30 or 9 P.M. and all day on Saturday—the boutique's busiest day—Hugo and I were left alone.
It was a war, and there were rules. When I came home from school, Hugo would make a polite attempt at conversation, such as, "Bonjour, Eric. How was school today?"
Depending on my mood, I would answer under my breath either "Bon"—fine—or "Why do you care?"
No matter what I said, as the grown-up, he could accuse me of being rude in my response. An unsatisfactory answer was a big enough offense that Hugo could pick a fight with me, though he had to be careful in his attacks: my mother's rule was that Hugo couldn't physically discipline me. Since he wasn't allowed to beat me, he sought subtle ways to push me around and make sure that I knew who was boss.
"You little brat," he often began. "I am the man in the house and you need to show me some respect."
Respect was the name of the game and a lack of respect was cause for him to get aggressive: nothing too overt, just a shove, a push, a pinch.
On my way into the kitchen, I sometimes threw my book bag on the sofa instead of putting it away in my room, which was enough cause for Hugo to open my bag and start throwing my books around, telling me to "shape up and stop being such a freaking slob." He would throw a tantrum over the mess and claim to be doing it as an advocate of my mother. "Your mother works so hard, Eric! When she comes home, she doesn't have the time or the energy to clean up after you. Show her some goddamn respect and put away your shit."
He could, if he chose—and it was all his choice—put his hand on my shoulder and push me into the wall like the bigger kids did at school, quick and rough before the teachers could catch them. "You go to school to learn, you little bum," he might say, pounding me with a book. "Did you learn anything today or did you do the teaching? Lessons in how to be a disrespectful little beast, perhaps?"
When Hugo wanted to drag the action out longer, he would ignore the book bag, and let me go into the kitchen to prepare my afternoon snack.
In France, le goûter is an important part of daily life. It might be a crêpe with caramel sauce or a baguette with a piece of chocolate smeared on it, Nutella-style. It could be a tartine with chèvre frais and olives or with raspberries and cream cheese.
I loved food, and so my goûter was as precious to me as cellphones are to kids today. I dreamed about my goûter. I spent most of Sunday thinking about my goûter for the week. My mother shopped for me especially so that I might have everything that I needed to tide me over until dinner.
But I was also a bit of a glutton and chances were good that unsupervised by my mother, I would eat much more than a snack. This was another opportunity for Hugo to reprimand me. So he watched me as I assembled the ingredients of what I would eat that day. I reached for the baguette, the butter, the Nutella, the raspberries. There was a knife, a plate, a napkin.
If he was in a good mood, Hugo would watch me assemble my snack and be sated by the fact that as I spread Nutella on the bread, I was visibly agitated. By this point I was usually ready to enter the fight. I wanted an excuse to tell him off, to speak disrespectfully, to tell him what I really thought of him.
If he was in a slightly less favorable mood, he had many ways he could toy with me, such as knocking the bread off the plate, then demanding that I pick it up. "Stop being so clumsy, Eric." Or, if there was jam out, he would pour it out on the floor, telling me to clean up the mess—this was a favorite tactic.
No matter what I did, I was vulnerable, and Hugo liked it that way. I was only seven and it would take me a long time—years—to gain the height and the courage to stand my ground and dare to fight back.
Hugo was patient in his cruelty. He trained me to mistrust him and even hate him, the way one might train a dog to fight. I learned to heel to his commands, and my senses developed so that soon I could read the signs and respond to the danger at hand.
What was harder to learn, what would take decades and putting an ocean between me and the man who dared to call himself my second father, was how to manage the anger. It just grew and grew inside of me. It became one of my coldest comforts: imagining all of the ways in which I would get back at Hugo and anyone else who dared to test me when I was bigger and stronger, away from my mother's house and free to defend myself.
Although my mother never asked me what was going on with Hugo, she noticed that I was changing. I was increasingly isolated at school, while at home I was more aggressive. The only way that I could tell she was sorry for all of the changes in our lives was through her food. Cooking gave her emotions a place to go.
As soon as I woke up, I went to the kitchen, where she had begun preparing dinner before she left for work. She indulged my increasingly specific requests—roasted capon with black olives, leg of lamb English-style, roast pork with mustard—and spoiled me with elaborate recipes from the nouvelle cuisine cookbooks on her bedside table.
The trips that we planned to restaurants became more elaborate too. In the beginning, she and Hugo sought out the best restaurants in the village, then the region. Soon, we were driving hours to Michelin-starred destinations like Café de la Paix, La Baumanière, Negresco, and Michel Guèrard. I had my special restaurant suit, and spent weeks looking forward to the afternoons when I'd be presented with the chariot de dessert, the old-fashioned dessert cart, and allowed to choose as many pastries as I wanted.
There was always excitement around the trip—choosing the restaurants from the guides (Michelin or Gault et Millau), and taking recommendations from friends. My mother, Hugo, and I would talk about it for weeks before. My mother would clip articles about great chefs and restaurants for me to read alongside the cookbooks that I devoured before bed. For me, the biggest thrills at these restaurants, besides the food, were the ritual and the formality. The white tablecloths were always starched and set with precision. Water was never dumped into a glass; it was poured with a certain style. When Hugo ordered wine, they brought out special glasses and decanted the bottle just so. Duck was carved tableside, crèpes were flambéed before our eyes. It was a magnificent performance and I relished every second of it.
The waiters were always respectful to me. Even though I was wide-eyed and impressed by their every gesture, they could tell that I was knowledgeable about food. I'd read from my own menu and say, "I'm going to try the rack of lamb stuffed with truffles, please." No one ever offered me anything akin to a kid's menu; I'm not sure such a thing even existed in France back then.
The biggest revelation occurred at Negresco, a decadent restaurant in Nice. The chef, Jacques Maximin, used the southern ingredients that I loved and really knew how to enhance their flavors, like a stuffed zucchini flower nappéd with a truffle sauce that had me begging for more, or a chiboust aux fraises des bois, a light-as-air cream pastry studded with fresh wild strawberries. After the meal, I announced to my proud mother that I'd never tasted anything so good in my life.
"The little prince has royal tastes," Hugo grumbled. But I didn't care. A great meal was always the best medicine for the wound that he was in my life. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 11 | Hugo occasionally helped out around the house and at my mother's stores, but what he really excelled at was spending her money and bossing me around. When my mother got pregnant, his bullying only intensified. With my mother in a more delicate condition, I had to fend for myself. She made sure that he bought the jambon de Paris and cakes and yogurts that I loved for my after-school snack, but Hugo would hide them from me. I could never convince her that I couldn't find them in the fridge.
While my mother was pregnant, she found out that Hugo had been cheating on her, and she kicked him out with a fury I'd never seen.
The next night, he returned and pleaded with her to take him back, saying he couldn't live without her, he'd never do it again, he just couldn't bear her being confined to bed without being able to touch her, and so on and so forth. She yelled at him to get out, that he was a lowlife, a sponge, and, to top it off, a lousy lover. Before I knew what was happening, he grabbed a pair of manicure scissors and slit his wrists right in front of us.
"You have to keep him, Maman," I pleaded, traumatized, as his blood spurted into the bathroom sink and all over the floor.
I had never seen anything like it. There was so much blood, I was certain that if I didn't act quickly, Hugo would die. I thought I hated him, but I didn't want to watch him die.
"Look what you've done!" I yelled at my mother. "What will happen to the baby? Who will look after me while you work? You can't just kick him out in the street."
Just like Hugo, I was crying and begging her to take mercy on him for the sake of the "family."
"You want him to stay?" my mother asked, incredulous.
"Yes," I insisted.
"Then he can stay," my mother said, her face drained and exhausted. Then she turned around and went back to bed.
And so I saved him. Later on, my mother told me that the bastard had known exactly how to cut himself without slicing an artery. I could hardly believe it: it had all been a show.
Soon after Hugo's "suicide attempt," my little sister, Marika, was born. Then, one weekend when I was away visiting my father, my mother and Hugo got married and his place in our home was cemented. Hugo used Marika as a wedge to try and drive me out of the family. "Now," he would remind me, "you are the bastard in the house." He humiliated me whenever he could, insulting me in front of other people. When we were home alone, it became increasingly physical. I began to fight him as hard as I could, knowing that even if he was bigger than I was, I could outsmart him and push him to his limit. What I didn't realize was that I was the one on the edge. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 12 | "Eric, clear the dishes," Hugo barked one night after I'd finished the last of the millefeuille à la vanille.
"Absolutely not."
"No TV then," he said.
"Bullshit!" I yelled.
I calmly went to my room and locked the door. He banged on it for what must have been twenty minutes. My mother tried for ten more, telling me to grow up and open the door. But I wouldn't give in. Instead I started writing notes and folding them into elaborate little envelopes I made using my art paper from class.
"Je vous dis merde!" read the first.
"You're all assholes!" said another.
"Go fuck yourselves!" was my final shot.
I knew that there would be hell to pay when I finally opened the door. My mother would get the belt, in an attempt to discipline me, but that only made me want to challenge her more. If I was going to be beaten, I was going to make sure they knew exactly how I felt about them before the first blow. Go fuck yourselves. I couldn't say the words. I couldn't fight back physically. But scribbling the curses, whispering them as I wrote, a feeling of pride bloomed in my chest. I wasn't just taking it—I was standing up for myself, on paper, if nowhere else. You're all assholes!
The pounding on the door intensified and Marika cried louder. My mother threatened everything she could think of, from a ban on desserts to no more visits to my father, but I wouldn't turn the lock. After they gave up and went to bed, I blasted my clock radio and sang Michel Sardou and Johnny Hallyday at the top of my lungs until it was almost lights out.
The immediate backlash wasn't that bad, but one night a few weeks later, my mother told me that she wanted me to "get a better education." She handed me a brochure showing kids my age wearing military uniforms in front of a château.
"But I always get very good grades!" I protested.
"It's the best school. You can learn horseback riding. You get to wear a beautiful uniform. You'll even have your own room!" She made it sound like Club Med. Finally, she arrived at the real reason: "You have to learn discipline and respect. We can't control you anymore."
I didn't understand who this "we" was. She was the one in charge of discipline; Hugo wasn't allowed to touch me (at least not in front of her), but by that point I had become desensitized to her punishment. She would hit me with a belt, and I'd just laugh and say, "What are you doing? I can't feel anything." Or, "Ha-ha! That tickles!" She would get so furious she'd go to her room and cry.
"I'll go live with my father then," I said. "He wants me to be with him." I wasn't sure about this, but in that moment I needed him to rescue me.
"He's married to Francine now, Eric, and you know she doesn't want you around," was her reply. "The last time you came back from their house, she didn't even bother to fold your clothes before shoving them in your suitcase. Besides, you don't want to have to eat her food every day, do you? This is for the best. Anyway, you don't have a choice. You're already enrolled. Classes start after New Year's."
"But the school year has just started! I can behave, I promise." It was suddenly clear how desperately serious the situation had become.
My mother glared at me. "Maybe you should have thought about that when you were making our lives so impossible."
I called my father in the hopes that he might save me from this fate. I don't know what I expected him to say, but I didn't expect him to ship me off without trying, like my mother had.
"I'm sorry, Eric, but I can't take you," he said, apologetic but firm. "Your mother says you need discipline and values, and this is the only way you'll learn. She doesn't know how to control you anymore. I'll see you in the summer. Maybe you can come to visit one weekend."
Eight years old, I thought, and thrown away.
My mother and Hugo put my suitcase in the trunk of their new car, strapped Marika in, and drove us two and a half hours to Perpignan, a small city on the southernmost tip of France. Boys were running between arches in the courtyard of a building that looked about fifty thousand years old, and they weren't wearing fancy uniforms: this wasn't the military academy I'd seen in the brochure. My mother hadn't been able to get me enrolled at the academy after all, so she was sending me to Saint Louis de Gonzague, a Catholic school with the reputation for having, as my mom put it, "the best education."
"All of the foreign presidents and diplomats send their sons here," she said with pride, as though this could possibly matter to me.
Only a heartless woman would send her eight-year-old away to school, I thought, with the kind of venom I usually reserved for Hugo.
The second-floor dormitory with its spare, military barrack–style bunk beds gave a hint of the grim school year ahead of me. My mother was suddenly emotional and I could see in her face that she knew she had made a mistake. When she moved to hug me goodbye, I turned away from her embrace. She leaned in to kiss my cheek and I turned away from that too. My mother winced, as if the gesture physically hurt; then she put on her "it's for the best, chéri" smile.
Hugo gave me a victorious pat, and that was it. They drove off with Marika sleeping in the backseat. I refused to even raise my hand and wave.
There were no private rooms at Saint Louis de Gonzague, just a drafty dormitory where forty boys slept in narrow iron beds, shared a single shower, and pissed in a trough. At this point in my (short) life, I was used to abrupt transitions and having to start over in a new place. But the first night in my tiny bed, I felt as if loneliness had tied itself around my ankle like an anchor with a knot that I would never untangle. I tried to pretend that it was summer and I was in my grandfather's apricot tree at their house in Cagnes-sur-Mer, missing home but enjoying my independence. But the cold, hard bunk was no substitute for the tree that was my summertime friend.
When class began, it was clear that I was far ahead in my lessons, so I decided it wasn't worth it to pay attention to the lady with the gray chignon at the front of the class. During the afternoon study period, there was nothing for me to study, so I read comic books. Finally, someone noticed: after six weeks or so, the school asked for my mother's permission to advance me from second to third grade. She said yes without asking me, proud to be the parent of a genius. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 13 | Suddenly I was dropped into a new group of boys who knew things I didn't, such as the basics of math and grammar. (And in France, if you don't know grammar, you're finished.) My new teacher couldn't be bothered to bring me up to speed, never mind take the time to answer my questions about politics and current events. In a single week, I went from being far ahead of my classmates to barely keeping up to falling behind.
I spent more and more time in the courtyard, halfheartedly playing with different groups of boys, because study hall had become torturous: I knew that I couldn't catch up to my new classmates. There was none of the usual comfort that I found in the food. It was cheap and disgusting, overcooked rice with raw garlic being a staple. I'd never known truly bad food before, and the comedown was dramatic.
On the occasional longed-for weekend when someone would come get me, I'd spend Saturday alone with Hugo and Marika while my mother worked; on a Sunday we might go on an outing—a picnic or fishing—before I was driven back to school, where no comforts or friends awaited me. My aunt Janine occasionally brought me back to Montpellier. My father never did invite me to visit.
My grades started to slip, then fail. During recess and study hall, where I spent most of my time, the man I'll call Père Damien, the former priest in charge of us during those hours, began paying more attention to me. In the early 1970s, a priest who had been forced to resign was considered défroqué—defrocked. You were shamed, but not fired, because the Church was very protective of itself and its own. Instead, defrocked priests were simply moved to another post. I would soon learn why Père Damien had lost his collar.
He must've seen how disengaged I'd become from the other boys, so he would often talk to me, staying with me after the other kids had gone back to the dorm. Once I'd told him all about how my mother and Hugo had conspired to send me away and wouldn't even come get me on weekends, he said that he would ask my mother's permission to take me around town when I wasn't back home. She happily arranged to pay him for these outings, which I looked forward to all week.
I'd always wanted an older brother, and Père Damien, with his American-style clothes and friendly manner, seemed to fit the bill. We'd walk into town to see a movie, or go to a flea market and look at old books and toys. We talked about grown-up things, mainly about my parents and their divorce, and how much I hated school. I also got to ask him the questions I had about religion. I was puzzled by Catholic rituals (my aunt Monique took me to mass in Nîmes, but I was only interested in how to get the cookie that they served at the end) and suspicious about origin stories like Adam and Eve. Though mysterious, Père Damien was warm and kind and always asked the right questions. He soon got me to open up. I felt like there was at least one person in Perpignan who understood me.
Sometimes he'd take me along as he ran errands to the stationery shop or the local market. On Saturdays, there was a flea market adjacent to the school and I began to accompany him as he shopped and talked to the merchants. A few weeks into our friendship, he took me to a part of town I'd never visited before. He told me to wait in the street for a few minutes while he ran an errand. I watched him go into a store with neon silhouettes and racy photos of curvy women on the curtained window. When he returned to my side five minutes later, he took my hand and walked me back to school.
The following weekend, after we'd gone to the Saturday flea market, Père Damien invited me to his room to watch TV. He hung his overcoat on the back of the door. Underneath he was wearing a cardigan and old work pants, which reminded me of my grandfather. There was barely space in his room for his monk-size bed. In order to watch the tiny set propped on his desk, we had to sit side by side on Père Damien's bed.
A few minutes into the show, he turned down the volume. "How do you do it with your mom and dad?" he asked me.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, when they give you kisses and caresses."
I froze. "They don't give me kisses and caresses."
"Sure they do." He practically purred the words and I could feel a wave of panic washing over me.
"They really don't," I insisted.
Père Damien turned the volume back up, but he moved closer to me. During a commercial, he began stroking my arm. I stared at the set, pretending to be interested in the shampoo the woman was advertising. He leaned over to kiss my neck, his long hair falling around his face and onto my stomach.
"My dad doesn't do that," I said, pushing him away.
"Oh, but you know he would love to give you affection. I know for a fact that he'd love to do that to you. Let me show you…."
"No!" I was uncomfortable, and suddenly angry that Père Damien would try to take my father's place, or even pretend to know what he was like. "You're not my dad, and I don't want you to do that. Leave me alone. I want to get out of here."
I got up and left, shutting the door. I was so scared that he would run after me. In my stomach I could sense that something wrong had just happened, and there was only one person who could help prevent it from happening again. I hurried to the phone booth to call my mother, looking over my shoulder to make sure he wasn't coming. I was terrified by what he would do if he caught me. Within moments, my only friend had become my enemy.
"What's going on?" my mother asked, sounding surprised to hear from me. It was dinnertime back home, and I could hear Marika crying in the background.
"We were watching TV and he said he wanted to give me affection like Dad and he started to kiss—"
"Who's 'we'?" she asked, sounding simultaneously concerned and annoyed.
"Père Damien," I whispered into the receiver. There were other boys around, and I didn't want them to hear what I was telling my mother. "He's acting weird."
I could hear the sharp intake of her breath and could picture the mixture of anger and aggression on her face. There was nothing quite like my mother in mama-bear mode. I knew that Père Damien was going to lose a limb, or his job, or both.
"I will call you back," my mother said. "Go to your dorm and don't talk to anyone."
"I don't want to be here anymore, Mom," I said, my toughness temporarily failing me. "I want to come home."
I forced myself to go to dinner, sitting away from the other boys. I was disturbed in a way I couldn't put into words. I slept that night with a kind of fear that I had never known. After all of the bad things I had seen and felt in my life so far, it was a terrible feeling to realize that there were even more horrible things out there, waiting to make themselves known. But not knowing what they were yet meant that I could not prepare myself, and the mixture of fear and helplessness was crippling.
The next day, one of the teachers found me in the courtyard and led me down the hallway to wait for my mother, who was in the head priest's office.
When she came out, her dark eyes shining, she said, "It's not going to happen again. And we'll get you out of here."
"Should I pack?"
Her eyes softened for a moment. "You can't come home until the end of the year," she said. "You have to finish the semester. I'm so sorry, my love." She held me for a minute, then pulled away, saying she had a long drive home.
The next day in study hall, I was terrified at the prospect of facing him again. I halfheartedly goofed around with the kid next to me to try to cover up my fear. Suddenly, Père Damien banged on my old hinge-top desk so hard it rattled the pencils and rulers inside.
"Get to work, Ripert!" he yelled. "Maybe if you studied harder you'd have better grades."
The other boys laughed, and I dove into my homework, furious and confused.
After everyone had left, I told myself to be brave, even though I was shaking, and I went up to Père Damien to ask him why he was picking on me.
"I can't believe you said all that to your mother!" he hissed. "You know I'm not allowed to talk to you again."
"I thought you were my friend," I said.
"Never," he spat. "You spoiled rich kids are all the same. Tell your mother to buy you a new friend."
For the rest of the year, whenever I saw Père Damien alone with other kids, my stomach tightened with fear, sensing that he might try to kiss them in his little room too. What he had done was wrong, but apparently it wasn't wrong enough to get him fired, or wrong enough for my mother to take me out of school. When I stole the Pagnol from my mother's house, she had admonished me to be someone she could trust. I tried to be trustworthy. Even that second-rate drama queen Hugo could trust me to have his back when the going got rough. But whom could I trust? No one, I thought. No one. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 14 | I got through the last few months of that school year like a prisoner who knows that he will soon be paroled, if he can just keep his head up. I made myself anticipate the bright green smell of basil as I walked to the market with my grandma Maguy. I dreamed of long afternoons spent in the apricot tree, reading books borrowed from the nearby library. There would be Sunday lunches with the Italian cousins, and then I'd be off to Nîmes where my aunt Monique would spoil me beyond her means and my cousin Patrick would be the brother I never had. I thought about the jazz records my father would play when he came home from the bank during our weeks together, asking me what I thought about Mingus or Bird while we went down into his cellar to top off his vinegar barrel with the half-empty wine bottles from the party the weekend before. I collected my memories like the coins I sometimes found on the beach: shiny valuable things hidden by piles and piles of sand.
On the last day of school, when my mother came to pick me up, she hugged me and in her embrace, I could feel a hundred apologies. But I let my arms hang loosely by my sides. I did not—would not—hug her back.
October 2, 1975
Dear Eric,
I have just seen the most incredible boxing match on TV. They called it the "Thriller in Manila." Two Americans. Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Ali has a face like a baby, but he took Frazier out in 14 sizzling rounds.
Ali calls himself the greatest and I must tell you, some people call him cocky, but I like it. Be confident, Eric. Be cocky if you feel like it. We only get one shot at this life, so why not float like a butterfly and sting like a bee?
All my love,
The Greatest Papa, Me
By the time I was nine, the suitcase underneath my bed was filled with letters from my father, but I never wrote him back. It wasn't my thing. Still, I loved getting his letters. They whizzed into my quiet and disconnected life like paper airplanes from a faraway land.
Before Hugo appeared on the scene, I did not mind all the ways my mother tried to pull me close. She picked my clothes, brushed my hair, hugged me on the steps of the school, and cupped my face with both hands when she kissed me, one kiss for each cheek, before I fell asleep at night.
I knew from watching the boys at school that a certain amount of exasperated pulling away was built in to the part that I had to play—the role of the beloved son whose mother cannot face that he is no longer a little baby.
But after Hugo, my pulling away was no act. My mother had, to my mind, chosen poorly, and I strove to remind her of this failing on a daily basis. Whenever she hugged me, whenever she kissed me, I wrestled away with a force that I hoped would convey the depth of my disappointment.
It was a round robin of pain and heartbreak: My father broke my mother's heart. My mother broke my heart by marrying Hugo. Hugo punished me because my mother was no longer happy with him and I hated him in return.
Even my father, married now to Francine and with another baby on the way, could not escape the fury that swirled around our home. Once, when driving me home after a holiday, he bought something in her store—a pair of pants, a belt—I suppose as a way to make amends. But she hated him as much as I idolized him, and as soon as he pulled away from the curb, she started in.
"Only hicks drive Audis," she'd sniff. "And did you see the pants he was wearing? Ridiculous. And his glasses are from 1965. I mean, not only is he cheap, the man has no taste. What a paysan."
Anytime I mentioned my father—after I'd read and reread one of his letters or talked about how excited I was to spend vacation with him—she'd rip him apart. He was a boring fonctionnaire, a paper-pusher in an unfashionable suit. He never wanted the beautiful things that she was working so hard to provide for us. He was a crappy trumpet player, a pathetic dresser, a cheat.
But nothing she said could temper the love that I had for my father. He was a big personality, a bon vivant, and an entertainer, but he was also unabashed and generous in his affection. My mother tried to impress me. All throughout my childhood, she worked hard to give me the best. She took me on trips to Paris when she was shopping for her boutique, she took me to fancy restaurants and bought me fancy clothes. She always let me know that everything we owned, from our car to the food on our plates, was "le top." But that was the difference between my mother and my father: my father might not have been the best dresser, might have worked in his garden in an old stained T-shirt, and might have gone too far when he puffed out his cheeks to play the trumpet like Louis Armstrong, but there was never any mistaking his love for me. When I walked into the room, his eyes lit up and he wrapped me in his arms as if it was Christmas morning and I was the best gift imaginable.
My mother was my caregiver, the one I depended on. Day in and day out, she did what my father had to do only on the occasional weekend visit and summer vacation. But her love didn't seem to be as big or as boisterous. It wasn't her fault, but it was her fate, like so many single mothers, to be caught between a wistful child and his fantasies of the father who is perfect, in part because he is hardly ever there.
The summer after I returned from boarding school, I spent a few weeks with my father. He took me to the beach for the day, just me and him, no Francine, which was a gift in and of itself. My father sat on the shore reading a book and drinking pastis. I played in the sand just a few yards away, spending the afternoon making the most elaborate sand castles. I used every tool at my disposal—buckets, shovels, twigs—and it took me hours to build. Then, when I was nearly done, a kid came by and kicked it down, stomping on it left and right.
I went crying to my father and he looked over at the kid I pointed out. My father stood up, furious, and said, "Eric, you have to go over there and teach that kid a lesson. I want you to go down there and kick his ass."
With that he pushed me forward, toward the water's edge where the kid was playing in the waves. My father was watching me closely—every time I turned, he was there—making sure that I would accomplish this task of defending myself.
I got to the kid and tapped him on his shoulder.
"What do you want?" the kid sneered, turning his back to me. In that moment, I knew that he did not live with a bully like Hugo, because he did not seem to know that you never, never turn your back on your opponent. Without hesitation, I jumped onto his back and he fell onto the sand. He was so startled that he couldn't regain ground as I straddled him, pummeling him with my fists.
The kid's father came running down to the water's edge, followed swiftly by my father. The boy's father reached for me, yelling, "Hey, get off my son!"
My father grabbed his hand and said, "Well, tell your son this is what he gets for kicking over other kids' sand castles."
The two men began to argue, and feeling the confidence of having my father close, I lit into the boy even harder. I hadn't wanted to fight him, but now I could feel the pleasure of holding him down and beating him. I did not beat him as a proxy for Hugo; I didn't imagine that I would one day punch Hugo the way I punched this boy. Rather, I beat him the way I had learned from being the recipient of Hugo's bullying and it frightened me, more than a little, how much it pleased me to pummel him, to lose control.
Summers were a welcome reprieve, not because I liked being out of school, but because I knew that this was my time to escape Hugo. Each summer, I went first to Nice to spend a few weeks with my maternal grandfather, then to Nîmes to spend a few weeks with my father's side of the family. They were all excellent cooks.
My mother's mother, Marthe, died of breast cancer when my mother was sixteen. My grandfather was devastated and completely overwhelmed. It was the late 1950s and he didn't know how to manage as a single father. My mother's older brother had Down syndrome and required nearly round-the-clock care. So, in a move that was shocking at the time, my grandfather went to a local dating agency to find a wife, and quickly. He was introduced right away to Maguy, a divorcee with a young son of her own. The two got along well and soon agreed that a quick marriage was both the most practical and respectable way to proceed.
Maguy was blond, pretty, warm, kind, and generous to the core. She came from a big Italian family and soon all of her siblings and their extended families became part of our family too. Maguy mended clothes for a living in the basement of their simple stucco home in Cagnes-sur-Mer. She sewed a few feet away from the workshop where my grandfather repaired televisions and tinkered with his homemade shortwave radio.
Maguy raised my uncle Roger as if he were her own son. Looking back, I can see how much she taught me about hard work and how to carry oneself with quiet dignity around difficult people like my grandfather, who made his demands very clearly known, but rarely his affection. Their marriage worked because Maguy could tell, from the start, how much heart my grandfather had, and she never lost sight of this.
Maguy also taught me how food brings people together, and how it also has the power to make even the loneliest person feel like the center of the universe. From the moment I arrived each summer, Maguy would bombard me with a steady parade of my favorite dishes. Pissaladière. Ravioli de daube. Paupiette de veau with fresh peas. "Manges! Manges!" she would say, which, in her faint Italian accent, always sounded like "Mangia! Mangia!" This was not the elegant food of my mother's kitchen—no saumon en croûte or dacquoises in Maguy's house. This was simple food, cooked from the heart. I loved nothing more.
At my grandparents' house, I was still a loner and a troublemaker. I'd climb the apricot tree in the yard and spend hours hidden in its canopy, daydreaming about having my family together again in our old house in St. Tropez, with its little garden and henhouse. The tree felt safe (and its fruit was delicious). When I was on the ground, I busied myself figuring out ways to destroy the well-kept garden around me. I'd make dams out of dirt, fill the centers with the hose, then kick in one side and watch as the muddy water flooded the pétanque field down the hill. I'd roll my grandfather's old tires in the mud and chase them into the street. I'd pick every lemon, yellow or green, from the tree, and pretend they were grenades. I'd tear the wings off of flies and drown ants in water. My grandparents called me "turbulent" or hyper, and "espiègle," mischievous. When I was being especially bad, my grandfather would grab me with his rough hands and yell, "You have the devil in your body! I have a secret medicine to get it out!" Then he'd spank me and send me to my room. But for me, being left to my imagination never felt like punishment. Quite the opposite—it was where I preferred to be.
Partly to keep me out of trouble and partly because she could tell how much I loved it, Maguy would hand me my own wicker basket every morning and take me with her to the market. For me, our shopping trips were more about the smells than the produce we brought back up the hill. By the summer of my sixth year, I was so attuned to the scents of the market that I could have found my way through our shopping list blindfolded. To start, I would let the scent of pains au chocolat ready to come out of the oven guide me to the bakery. I could smell they were ready before I could see them, and that was a kind of training for my future career too: being able to tell, from a room away, the exact moment when the chocolate began to crisp as it overflowed the golden pastries at the edges. Next I would follow the metallic odor of blood to the butcher across the street where we bought veal and beef. After that I sought out the fustiness of the aged ham and sausage at the charcuterie, and then the grocer, where barrels of briny-slick olives pricked the back of my nostrils. Finally, baskets already heavy, we would make our way to the covered market, where every scent was even more intensified by the incubator effect of the hot metal roof.
The top note of the market's bouquet was always basil, bright and vibrant, a sunny green perfume. To this day, basil never fails to trigger a palpable swell of joy in my chest. I almost swooned at the fragrance of anise, clove, and mint coming from the hundreds of foot-tall bunches jammed into beat-up cans of water. I followed Maguy closely as she picked her way through stacks of salted baccalau; piles of papery, honey-scented zucchini blossoms that seemed to float, one on top of the other; booths manned by farmers who tried to sweet-talk us into looking at their goods, their tables sagging under the weight of musky-sweet melons. Even the zucchini had their own slightly bitter perfume. Peppers, capers, anchovies, tomatoes, goat cheese, grassy olive oil: all the brawny, fragrant flavors of Provence vied for my attention.
Though sweet and friendly, Maguy wasn't the easy mark vendors often took her for. She insisted on the best quality and price. "These tomatoes aren't ripe," she would say, pressing her finger to the unyielding flesh and giving it an accusatory sniff before putting it back. "The bread had a better crust yesterday," she would tell the baker.
"Smell this melon, Eric," she would say, bringing my nose to the stem end. "It smells like rotting papaya. That means it's too ripe. And look: bigger dimples mean female melons, which means they're sweeter. Tu comprends?"
Everything was touched, inhaled, disputed. And since she was always smiling, she always got what she wanted. If I was good, Maguy would give me a few francs and let me buy whatever I wanted. Inevitably, I chose a pastry.
Back home, I'd watch as Maguy sorted the produce, leaving most of it in a basket outside the back door, French country-style, and tied on her apron. Then she started making ratatouille or petit farci or gigot d'agneau—rustic dishes that filled the small, white-tiled kitchen with their slow-simmering odors. Except for a few pizza-making classes she'd taken from a local housewife, Maguy was self-taught. She was an intuitive cook. She knew how to work with her hands and season instinctively.
When she made petit farci, she'd seek out the best tomatoes she could find, neatly hollowing them out and setting aside any usable scraps. Then she'd mince the jambon de Paris, veal, and pork (and maybe a little diced coppa) by hand in one of her bowls, her fingers telling her if the mixture was too coarse or too soft. Next she'd stir in the herbes de Provence I'd gathered from the backyard, along with some parsley and nutmeg, and add an egg. Every time, without using a single measuring cup or spoon, she would have just enough to fill the vegetables, without a speck left over. Her senses were a steady, reliable guide.
Of all of the food I ate during those summers, there was one dish that I willed into being every day: Maguy's tarte aux pommes. The scent of butter and apple was sunshine itself. I loved it so much, she made one for me every day, no matter how much it heated up the already-broiling kitchen. I watched her prepare the dough in the afternoon, rolling it impossibly thin and laying it on a battered old baking sheet. Her secret was using demi-sel (salted) butter instead of unsalted, to enhance the sweetness of the apples. Then, she covered the dough with a kitchen towel and put it in the refrigerator to harden overnight. During my nap, she would pull out the dough from the day before, layer translucent apple slivers over the pricked crust, sprinkle a few teaspoons of sugar on top, and pop it in the oven. That was all. No fancy techniques, no sticky glaze, and no comparison. I could never wait for it to cool. Even though Maguy insisted that I share, all twelve thin, crisp, just-sweet rectangular slices were gone within minutes.
Although Maguy turned out the same dishes that were being made all over the south of France at the time, her food contained the most essential ingredient: love. True, the quality of her meals was due in part to the quality of the produce she used. (Even today, with access to the best produce in America, I will never be able to buy a tomato or an eggplant that tastes as intensely itself as those Maguy got in her village from the truck farmers she knew by name.) But what truly made the difference was that she put her feelings for her family into every pot. She cooked with the same care and attention that she gave everyone in her orbit. Every dish tasted as though it was made just for me.
And, in a way, it was. Maguy wasn't interested in getting me to help. Men, I was constantly reminded, had no place in the kitchen. "T'es toujours dans mes jupons dans la cuisine!" I was told in every house: You're always in my skirts in the kitchen! But watching from her doorway was all the experience I needed. Other kids looked to TV to entertain and instruct them; I had a view of my grandmother's stove.
Sunday was my favorite day in Cagnes-sur-Mer. I'd climb the apricot tree and perch in my special forked branch, my hands smelling of bark and verbena. If I sat facing the house, I could look through the balcony's iron bars and catch a glimpse of Maguy in her kitchen, busier than usual. If I turned the other way, I could see the château on top of the hill across the valley. Many of my daydreams took place in that castle. I'd swing across the moat, narrowly avoiding the alligators, to face off a gang of cowboys and knights. My heroic fantasies always culminated in somehow bringing my parents back together again. My longing for them was almost physical: when I was with one, I felt the absence of the other like a dull ache. And when I was on my own like this, I missed them both even more. Like some people are tired all the time, I was in a constant state of missing my mother and father. But Sunday lunch made things better, if only for the afternoon.
Sunday mornings, I would watch as my grandfather and his brother-in-law Gaston hauled the long wooden table out to the yard below and set it up with at least twenty mismatched folding chairs in preparation for Maguy's big, boisterous Italian family, who came for lunch and games every week. Even from up in the tree, I could sense the excitement building in the house, which would burst forth as soon as the first old Renault chugged up the steep driveway, followed by the second, third…sixth….By then I was out of hiding, ready to be pinched and hugged—and fed.
The house and yard filled with people, laughter, and food. The women always gathered upstairs around the dining room table to roll out tagliatelle on a wooden board, or stamp out ravioli and fill them with cheese while a big pot of Bolognese sauce simmered on the stove in the kitchen. Meanwhile, the men had their first aperitif, always pastis or pernod, and divided into teams to play pétanque. The brightly colored metal balls thudded on the sand court. The young cousins peeled off and attacked the foosball table in the basement. Then we'd play other games: I'd put on my Zorro outfit and run through the garden with them, tearing out verveine, mint, and rosemary by the handful as we raced past the bushes to see how much we could collect before my grandfather got mad at us for ruining his plants.
But as much as I liked playing with the other kids, I preferred to be with the adults. To be specific, I wanted nothing more than for the women to teach me how to roll out pasta and then hang it to dry on an old broomstick. When I tried to watch, they just ruffled my hair and told me to keep out of the way. "Go play with the boys!" they'd say, chasing me away with a pat and a shake of their heads before returning to their good-natured gossip.
By two o'clock, all twenty of us were crammed around the rickety table in the front yard. I usually ended up squeezed between adults, listening to them argue about leftist politics. There were always the heated discussions about who cheated at pétanque or cards, who caught the biggest octopus the last time they went diving, and who made the best soupe de poisson over a campfire on the beach at Triasse.
It was a roller coaster of intensity: the euphoria of the games followed by the drama of who won, who lost, who cheated. All of the men pretended to be angry after the game and no one was more moody about the outcome than my grandfather, whom everyone allowed to win, so that the head of the household would be satisfied and not ruin the day.
Bowls of fresh pasta and platters of vegetables that Maguy and I had chosen at the market that morning were washed down with bottles of rough wine. People didn't speak; they yelled. But it was all warm and loving, filled with hugs and the pure satisfaction of coming together around the table for an afternoon. There was incredible solidarity among Maguy's family: because of the economic crisis in Italy, everyone pooled their money to send relatives sugar, coffee, clothes, whatever they lacked. And even though my grandfather didn't know how to express his love as easily as they did, everyone understood that underneath his gruffness, he loved us all. For a handful of Sundays a year, I felt like part of a real family. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 15 | After a few weeks with my mother's family, I was sent off by train to Nîmes, a few hours away, for the next stop on my summer vacation.
The first few days of my visit were spent with my father's parents in the old part of town. My grandfather would take me to the railway-pensioner garden to harvest dinner, spending hours chatting with other retired train workers. In the big cities, every employee of the railroad was given a large plot of land to farm. The size of the parcel depended on how long you worked for the railroad and what position you held, but it was yours to cultivate however you liked. My grandfather's garden was about two thousand square feet with a little shack. It was a great benefit, and my grandfather tended it with pride and pleasure.
At home, I watched my grandmother Emilienne can tomatoes, cook down plums for jam, and put up jars of cherries or apricots in brandy. She made me endless croque monsieurs using a medieval-looking iron contraption that clamped the bread between long handles so you could hold it over a fire to make melty, lightly charred sandwiches. (After she passed away in 1998, I honored her with a dish at Le Bernardin. Granted, my croque was made with caviar and smoked salmon instead of ham and cheese, but I sought to imitate her golden crust, and the adoration and respect that went into it were entirely for her.)
After living like a retiree with my grandparents, I was ready to play with my cousins in deepest Provence. My cousins, aunt, and uncle lived modestly in a steeply A-framed cabin that my aunt Monique's husband built. Known in the Provençal dialect as a mazé, it was so small it almost seemed like a dollhouse, but I only slept there. Most of my time was spent running through the woods, hills, and vineyards with my cousin Patrick, who was about my age, and the kids from the few houses in the area.
Completely unsupervised out in the garrigue—the wild countryside of thyme, scrubby oak, and olive trees—Patrick and I ran free all day. We stripped the bark from trees, drowned ants in the inflatable pool, and played cowboys and Indians. We walked the mile into the village to buy baguettes, trying to catch a glimpse of the baker (we'd heard he kneaded the dough with his feet). We made up ghost stories in the woods after dark and sprinted home screaming our heads off. We even convinced ourselves that the Abominable Snowman was coming to get us—this in a place so hot that Patrick's father lay down on the table after lunch and turned the sprinkler on himself to stay cool while he napped.
It was the only time, as a child, that I can remember enjoying being with a group of kids my age. The games I had played in my imagination all those lonely afternoons in the back of my mother's store or up in the apricot tree in Cagnes-sur-Mer were finally brought to life with real characters. At the mazé, our gang made up new adventures all day long, living them out between meals, which were the only time we were separated or still. By the time we sat down to dinner, long after the late-August sun had set, Patrick and I were dirty, dusty, scraped, and tan.
At Monique's house, every afternoon had the excited, familial mood of Sunday lunch in Cagnes-sur-Mer. She'd line up a few wobbly folding tables under the welcome shade of some pine trees and we'd eat for hours. Patrick and I could run off and play and come back for seconds and thirds, and everyone would still be there, laughing and passing the platters. The cooking was simple and economical, served family-style on a plastic tablecloth. There was no room to turn around in that kitchen, let alone make anything sophisticated, but Monique took great pleasure in feeding her family tasty, satisfying meals.
The flavors of her dishes are ones that I can summon anytime, even now, forty years later: the basil brightening the flavor of the white beans in soupe au pistou; the salty sweetness of pissaladière, with its olives, onions, and anchovies on a flaky crust; the rich fromage blanc mixed with pungent anchovy cream and parsley that we slathered on toast; the garlicky brandade, the nature of which Monique debated with her bearlike brother-in-law Serge, who owned a restaurant near Montpellier. "No potato in the brandade!" Serge would yell, pounding on the table. "Just cod, two cloves of garlic, and olive oil!" Garlic, olive oil: the simple Provençal palate suited me.
When it came to eating, I was unstoppable. I didn't think twice about eating three or four croissants for breakfast, or the entire brick of cheese that Monique had bought the family for the week. It never occurred to me that since Monique's husband was unemployed, they didn't have much money to spend on food, or that I was supposed to share. My gluttony was a running family joke. You couldn't tell it by looking at me because I was skinny and tall, but I could, and often did, eat everything in sight. Monique spoiled me by making my favorite dishes, and liked to surprise me with a snack of hot buttered pain de mie, toast that she grated chocolate over until it melted.
I could sense that my family wanted to please and protect me. In the early 1970s, divorce was still taboo in Catholic France, and Monique was as Catholic as they came. She knew that as a result of my parents splitting up, I was now something of an outsider in French society—divorce, to her, was a disaster. I wasn't living the life that an innocent child should. Years later she told me that she felt a special duty to make sure I knew I was loved and surrounded by family. She saw my sadness and did what she could to make me happy those few weeks in the country: she cooked to mend my heart.
"Eric, can I offer you a snack?" Hugo asked one afternoon when I got home from school. He sounded like he was reading from a script.
A snack? You've never given me a snack in your life, I thought. But I kept my mouth shut. There was, after all, food to be had.
Soon after I'd returned from boarding school, we moved to Foix, where I started the fifth grade in a one-room schoolhouse that was so old, we wrote with quills dipped into pots of ink. Then about a year later, my family moved to Andorra—a twenty-mile-wide sliver of a nation in the mountains between France and Spain—in a sudden and mysterious rush.
My mother explained that the French government taxed unfairly and that she'd be better off opening a store in a country that didn't charge sales tax. Hugo, the die-hard socialist, said that the whole point was to avoid detection by the oppressive bureaucracy. So the two of them chose to exile our family to a mountainous country where we had no friends and everyone spoke Catalan and Spanish. In the end, though, not much changed: my mother worked six days a week, making lots of money, while Hugo, whom my mother banished from the store regularly due to his uselessness, hung around our rented chalet in his ascot and knocked me around, harder and harder.
He'd smacked me in the face once or twice in Foix—stinging new ends to our daily arguments—but it wasn't until we got to Andorra that war was officially declared. One day after school, I provoked him about setting the table—my favorite way to make him angry was to remind him of his masculine chores—and he charged at me and hit me with such force, I was knocked backward. It was the closest that he'd come to giving me an out-and-out thrashing. Usually, he preferred a more subtle form of roughing me up: kicks, punches, and shoves delivered in an almost offhanded manner. This time, he meant to kick my ass. I remember being almost impressed, thinking, That hurt. Wow, he's strong for such a little guy!
Later, when my mother saw the giant bruise forming on my face, she flew into a rage that surprised Hugo and me both.
"Don't you ever touch my son again, you hear me?" she told him, practically snarling. "I am in charge of the discipline in this house. Hit him again and you're out."
Hugo lowered his head and apologized. After that, he was careful to hit me where it didn't show.
And so when he handed me a box of chocolates after I'd already had my after-school snack, I was suspicious. Mon Chéri chocolates? "And your mother made you daube de bouef for dinner with millefeuille for dessert." I didn't need the sixth sense that my grandmother always told me I had to know that something very bad had happened.
At dinner, my mother abruptly excused herself from the table, leaving Hugo to serve dessert. Later, I heard her crying in her room.
My mother's crying went on for another day, alongside Hugo's smiles and special treatment. He even drove me down the mountain to the bus stop instead of making me walk through the snow like he usually did. When my mother was finally able to compose herself, she and Hugo asked me to sit on the couch and said that they had something to tell me.
"Eric," she said, unable to make eye contact, "we have sad news. Your father was climbing a mountain, La Rhûne. He got tired and told his friends to finish without him. By the time they got back down, he'd had a heart attack."
I felt my breath catch. "A heart attack?" I said. "Will he be okay?"
My mother began to cry.
"No, Eric," she said. "Your father is dead."
Hugo rubbed her back and offered me more chocolate.
I knocked the box from his hand and ran to my room. My father could not be dead. It simply was not possible. He lived far away and I did not see him often, but the fragile web of my existence depended on knowing that he was out there and that he loved me, and that someday, when I was older, we would travel together and hike mountains all over the world, as he promised me. The tears came quickly then as I realized that my mother would never lie about a thing like this.
There was a lot of shooting in the TV shows and movies that I watched after school with Hugo and I often wondered, what did it feel like to be shot? When my father died, I stopped wondering. Metal tearing through flesh sounded like a walk in the park compared to the hurt I was feeling.
I cried on my bed for hours and when it felt like I had shed every tear I had, I pulled out the box of letters my father had sent me since the divorce and read through them all, skipping the parts where he told me how mad he was at me for not writing him back (not my strong point) and how I should learn to behave and be more respectful of Maman and Hugo. Instead I focused on the lines telling me that he loved me and missed me, and where he described all the fun we'd have on my next visit: we'd go see the fishermen, he'd let me count the money with the prettiest teller at the bank, and we could go to any restaurant I wanted so we wouldn't have to eat Francine's food. He'd teach me to play trumpet like Louis. I replayed all of the conversations we had, the times we played in his house, our picnics in the countryside.
In the morning, I finally came out of my room.
"Should I pack, Maman?" I asked. "I mean, for the funeral?"
"It already happened," she said. "You're only eleven, Eric. You should have happy memories of your father alive with you, not of some body in a coffin."
I could not believe it. Did she want me to kill myself? How could she have kept me from my father's funeral? My sadness turned to rage and then the anger to numbness. It was like my heart had been cooked in a bonfire. There was nothing left but ashes, but the ashes still hid a few lethal flames. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 16 | My father had died, but I missed only one day of classes. I decided I'd rather go back to school than spend another day home with Hugo. It was a snowy day and as usual, I walked from our house to the place where I waited each day for the school bus that would take me down the mountain. Sometimes the snow would come down so hard, the only thing that let me know the bus was coming was the two red lights in the distance. I sat down on the ground, at the base of the mountain, and I spoke, out loud, to my father.
"Papa, if you are really dead, give me a sign," I asked.
I saw two red lights and I thought it was the school bus, but then a dozen more lights appeared and they circled my head like a red halo. The lights went around and around, whizzing just above my head, for what felt like a very long time. I had asked for a sign, and I received it. When the school bus finally pulled up and the door opened, it took all the strength I had to leave my perch on the mountain.
Goodbye, Papa, I thought, as the bus ambled away. Goodbye. I love you. I'll love you always. I love you still.
As much as I learned to love food by eating in my mother's and grandmother's kitchens, Jacques was my first introduction to a real chef. After I had my first meal at his restaurant, I began heading straight there after school to watch him cook. Why would I spend my afternoons doing homework or getting picked on by Hugo when I could hang out with Jacques? I never offered to help, and he never asked; I was only allowed on the kitchen side of the counter when he wanted me to taste things. Jacques had kids, a son and a daughter my age, but I don't think they were interested in the restaurant. But by the time we met, food—shopping for it, making it, eating it—was my greatest happiness, and Jacques could tell this from the moment we met.
It soon became clear to me that even though he put on a show, Jacques wasn't actually crazy or cruel. He just played the part of the town character. Everyone in our tiny capital knew that the native Parisian was a career parachutist who'd fought with, and cooked for, the colonial troops of the French army in the Vietnam War. What he had done in the war—what he might be capable of when vexed—was anybody's guess. By keeping his knives sharp and his temper sharper, Jacques kept people off guard—which is how he liked them.
In the kitchen, Jacques was a master of the classics, but his travels as a soldier meant his menu included dishes that you rarely saw on restaurant menus at the time: Vietnamese spring rolls, lacquered duck with five-spice, and poulet au bambou. These dishes not only made him justifiably celebrated, they also added to his outsider reputation.
Jacques used to say his mother-in-law was his true teacher in the kitchen, not because she taught him to cook but because she educated his palate. According to Jacques, during the year that he lived with his wife's family, menus were never repeated unless favorite dishes were requested. Mercedes's mother did everything herself: duck confit, smoked magret, foie gras, preserves of all types, sausages, marmalade.
He spoke lovingly about going out to jazz clubs and returning late at night to his mother-in-law's cold tomato tortilla waiting on the dining room table for him to enjoy. After she passed away, no one ever dared to make that tomato tortilla again, not even him.
If it wasn't for Mercedes, his wife, Jacques said his family might have starved: the personification of the phrase "a casa del herrero, cuchillo de palo"—in the blacksmith's house, they use sticks for knives. He was so busy with the restaurant that at home he never prepared anything more complicated than Brie and bread. But Mercedes made the most delicious paella in the world, tortillas that looked like two-tiered cakes, stuffed calamari, cannoli, and garlic chicken. Mercedes was especially gifted at cooking fish with sofrito. And she never wrote a recipe down.
Jacques said that because of his life in the military, he had traveled the world. In every place, he made friends. In every place, he had girlfriends. He might have stayed in another country if not for the wars that brought him to those shores in the first place. But he and Mercedes made a good pair. He had grown up in Paris in a neighborhood of European immigrants: Polish families and Gypsies, Spaniards and Italians. To him, Mercedes and her large extended family felt like home. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 17 | "Only if you cook what you love and truly understand will people be happy with your food. Running a restaurant is not a popularity contest. It is not really any way to get rich. But you can make beautiful food and you can live your life your way," he told me one day as he was writing out the menu on the chalkboard. "C'est toi qui décides. It must be you who decides."
One afternoon, while I was polishing off a steak au poivre vert at the counter (the important thing, Jacques instructed me, was to get the pan as hot as you could before adding the meat—that, and always give good wine to your butcher), an English couple walked in and told Jacques they'd heard about him. He was in a good mood and he winked at me to let me know he planned to have a little fun with them.
They knew about the set menu and asked what he was making for dinner.
Jacques smiled and said, "Tonight it's spring rolls, poulet au bambou, and baba au rhum."
The couple understood what spring rolls were, but asked him to explain the poolay, sill voo play.
"Alors," he said, his round face widening with a wicked grin. "Je vous explique. C'est le poulet"—he started clucking madly, his arms flapping crazily—"avec le bambou." He made wild stabbing gestures as he ran toward them, screaming.
Believe it or not, they stayed.
For Jacques, it was imperative that he choose which customers had the privilege of dining in the restaurant. For him, inviting guests into his restaurant was more intimate than inviting them into his own home.
The more I came to watch Jacques cook, the more he began to share his recipes with me. Eventually, Jacques even taught me the secret to his perfectly crispy nems, or Vietnamese spring rolls, which I had loved since one of my earliest visits. To start, he puréed onions and squeezed them in a towel to get out all the water. "That way they won't oxidize, so they won't taste like onion in your mouth. Tu comprends?" Then he mixed the onion with carrot, crab, ground pork, chopped vermicelli, champignons noirs, and a few eggs. "Are you watching, Eric? Mix it all together to make the farce. Use your hands. Then, when you put it in the wrapper, you have to be extra careful not to use too much farce, and not to roll it too tight."
My mother was happy to hear that he started frying them in a pan of cold oil, just like she did. She was less happy to hear that he let me eat twelve nems, versus her limit of eight at home.
I was fascinated by this new world of flavors and techniques that he had brought into the mountains; I imagined Jacques in the jungles of Vietnam, chopping down bamboo trees with a machete to make dinner for his regiment, or learning how to fold rice-paper wrappers from an old village woman. I began to imagine what other dishes lay beyond the borders of France, Spain, and Andorra. My mother introduced me to Moroccan dishes, and from my grandmother Maguy, I had enjoyed many great Italian dishes. My father's mother, Emilienne, taught me the tastes of Provence. She cooked with a lot of passion too. My grandmother Emilienne was shyer and not as expressive as Maguy, but I loved the time I spent in her kitchen. She cooked from her own garden and the radio blared opera—the bellowing tenors and cascading soprano voices that she loved.
The Asian influence was becoming big in France at this time, and Jacques played a big part in bringing those flavors to my life. So did my godmother, Rosemarie. She was an old friend of my mom's: a pretty strawberry-blond woman who never married and never had kids. On the occasional Saturday, Rosemarie would take me out to a Vietnamese restaurant and a movie. But I did not just eat Vietnamese food in restaurants. My mother also had friends in St. Tropez who were Vietnamese immigrants. They were the ones who taught my mother how to make Vietnamese spring rolls, and through them, that influence entered our kitchen.
Vietnamese cooking was very different from the Italian and Provençal influences, which were more prevalent during those times. In the early 1970s in France, mint and cilantro were not common in savory food. Mixing pork and shrimp was also unusual. Rice paper was a completely new ingredient in French cuisine, and the sweet-and-sour dishes that you find in Vietnam, like pork caramel, were not common flavors for the French at all. As a kid who was obsessed with food I loved all of it: not just the spectrum and combination of flavors, but also the way the food was served; it felt entirely new to take a piece of chicken and dip it into an aromatic, like fish sauce, before each bite. And of course, to a kid, chopsticks were highly entertaining.
At his restaurant, Jacques showed me how he made his mousse au chocolat without cream—just dark chocolate melted with butter before adding an egg yolk and folding it all into meringue with the lightest touch. He made it in the same scratched glass bowl, using the same aluminum fork, for years.
Everything at Chez Jacques was cooked with love and care. Serving only a few dishes meant that he could spend all the time he needed to baby his food: he would take an entire morning just to make a tarte tatin, something I would never again see in a restaurant kitchen. On weekend mornings that I was there, he showed me how to first melt the butter and sugar in the skillet, and how to nestle half of the apples in the pan and cook it all very, very slowly, as though he had nothing else to do that day. It was my Saturday-morning cartoon.
But Jacques's baba au rhum—the rich, yeasty cake soaked in dark rum with just the right hint of vanilla—was my true addiction. One day I asked if his mother had taught him the recipe.
"No," he said, holding up the bag of supermarket flour. "The recipe's right on the package. But when you cook a dish with passion, you elevate even a box recipe."
He was the culinary king of Andorra. Jacques, my hero. No bullshit, no pretension, just quiet mastery that seemed to come from his bones, and a true love of cooking that you could see, feel, and, most important, taste. When he wasn't trying to scare people, he was making them truly happy.
Watching Jacques over the years, I came to understand how much hard work goes into being a chef. Each night, Jacques's dinner service was a one-man show with triumph after plated triumph. But the next morning, he always had to start over from scratch, no matter how tired or hungover he may have been. He told me that despite decades in the army, he'd never really known hard work until he opened a restaurant. He made every dish himself and never took shortcuts. There was no one to help him in the kitchen, not even a dishwasher. But Jacques was happy to go shopping all morning and then come back to his restaurant and cook all day, and at the end of the night, to scrub his own pots and pans. As much as he loved to create exquisite meals, I began to see that what Jacques loved most was the autonomy. And as I moved from middle school to high school, that mixture of great food and great independence started to appeal to me too. I began to wonder what it would be like to cook for myself and on my own terms.
Jacques had a pension from the army, so he didn't need to work so hard, but he had no choice; it was in him. When he saw someone swoon over his chicken marinated with ginger and star anise, served with all of its juices in a then unheard-of bowl of hollowed-out sourdough bread, it was worth more to him than the hefty price they'd paid for the privilege. He was happy to have clients and do his little act. It was his life. More than happy, he was content, and that contentment came from the fact that he was cooking the dishes he chose, for the customers he approved, in a restaurant that he owned. He was a free spirit and lived, in that way, totally independently. It was a contentment that I felt too, but only when I was around him. He never encouraged me to become a chef, only to eat whatever I wanted, but maybe that's because he could see that the desire was already in me. I couldn't see it at the time, but what began as a refuge from home and an escape from Hugo became my truest school.
For all of her glamour, my mother loved being outdoors as much as I did. She needed the break. The boutique made our whole affluent lifestyle possible. The transparent coats, short skirts, and clingy sweaters made by Courrèges were incredibly popular, and my mom was the only person selling them in a petite boutique in a tiny country with no sales tax.
Come Friday night, every curve of Andorra's dangerous mountain roads was bumper-to-bumper with French and Spanish residents coming to buy clothes, liquor, cigarettes, perfume, and watches in the makeshift capital, where the traditional stone buildings with their slate roofs were being torn down to make way for a nondescript late-seventies boomtown. My mother's boutique was set off the main shopping street in an arcade called the Galerie de Paris. She had an eye for fashion and even I have to admit: no one wore those clothes better than my mother. Part of her success was that she was not just a great salesperson, she was also the embodiment of the brand, the way that Ralph Lauren came to symbolize a preppy lifestyle during the same era.
Come Saturday, her boutique was so crowded that she had to lock the door after every tenth customer. The line of women seeking the latest Courrèges styles stretched to the end of the arcade. People bought five or six of one item at a time; my mom had to restock before opening the door to the next round of customers. As her business got more and more successful, my mother began to groom employees she could rely on to watch the shop while she was away. Our weekend camping and hiking trips became a sacred refuge.
Outside of the time I spent with Jacques, the only true serenity I found was in the mountains. On Saturday mornings, we loaded our backpacks with tents, sleeping bags, and so much food and wine that Hugo's friend Roger often came along. Roger had owned a fish market in Toulouse, but had sold it by the time he and Hugo became friends. He was semiretired at that point, and a good companion on the road. He made Hugo more mellow, helped my mom, and was funny and kind to me. Our weekend hiking trips were welcome escapes from the tension in our home. It was as if we could only be a family when we were on top of a mountain. Every time, I could feel my whole body relax as we disappeared up the foggy peaks for two days of hiking and eating, the men happily carrying backpacks of food and bottles of champagne and Bordeaux.
There are dozens of lakes in the mountains of Andorra. During our years living there, we'd gotten to know which waters had the most trout to be caught. (Hugo, of course, fished with fly larvae, which were banned.) My mother would poach the just-caught trout in a big pot set over a camping stove. When the fish was almost done, she would add a dash of vinegar to the court bouillon in which she was poaching the trout. That burst of acidity caused the skin of the fish to turn blue—a rare delicacy I'd read about in one of her cookbooks. Then she would reduce the liquid, emulsify it with a little butter, and serve it as a sauce for the fish.
Typically, we'd leave our Jeep on a sliver of gravel at the side of the twisting road and hike in for a few hours. Once we set up camp, we gathered the green flowering branches from wild rhododendron bushes (domestic rhododendron is poisonous, especially the American variety) to fuel our fires. I tried to name all the wildflowers with help from Roger, who was a local. Whenever we were thirsty, we drank the snowmelt from a lake or stream. We scrambled up the narrow trails between the rocks until we came to the next pass. We edged sideways along icy cliffs, using hooks to keep from slipping, and one time got stuck in place while a fog rolled in and blotted out the path. One of our favorite weekend excursions was to hike past three lakes, over a mountain, and into France.
The walks were always intense—try as I might, I could never pass Hugo, who motored ahead of us on his stubby legs. My determination to put him behind me always got me to the top. During the moments when I wasn't competing in my mind, the beauty of the endless mountains filled me with a sense of expansive calm that I began to crave. I started keeping a notebook listing each mountain and how long it took me to hike to the top. My legs and lungs were strong from walking up and down the mountain paths of Andorra. I was getting stronger every day.
After we'd reached our destination, we would make camp for the night. I had my own tent. Whenever we went camping in the snow (somehow it seemed like a perfectly normal family activity to sleep outside in below-freezing temperatures), our dog, Yuki, slept next to me to warm the tent with his breath. At night I read my favorite book by flashlight: a Reader's Digest volume on New York City, filled with pictures of all the famous buildings and people. As much as I loved my outdoor life, for some reason I was determined to live in New York. My quest to get there became a climb of a different kind of mountain.
Often, in the spring, we'd have my favorite meal: a salad of white pissenlit, or dandelion greens, picked wild from beneath a patch of melting snow. (The dandelions were baby-white because they hadn't yet seen the sun. Later in the spring, they would turn a brilliant verdant green. But in early spring, they are still white, tender, and sweet.) My mother would toss them in a mustardy vinaigrette and serve them with lamb chops grilled on a piece of slate—a typical Andorran preparation in which the charred meat takes on a slight mineral spice. Finally, she'd prepare a fricassee of chanterelles that we'd gathered while hiking in the woods on our way to where we would set up camp.
During these meals, I imagined my father next to me, telling me what a strong hiker I was and planning our next climb. I always talked to my father when I found myself in a dangerous spot, imagining what it must have been like for him to die on the side of a mountain. His words of wisdom, which came to me as flashes of good ideas, always got me to safety. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 18 | Madame Amparo was the town psychic. She lived in Spain but like so many, she came to Andorra to do her shopping. She was a blond fifty-something woman, dressed in a simple but chic dress and, in the winter months, a vintage fur coat. Madame was gifted and when she came to Andorra, there was no shortage of people who wanted to book time with her and hear her predictions. More than just a psychic, Madame Amparo, many of our friends and neighbors believed, had the power to heal, and they often requested that she visit their loved ones in the hospital, where it was said that she could cure even the most devastating illness with her warm touch and powerful prayers. Her work was rooted in the New Age, but the benefits were so well proven that no one questioned the validity of her gifts. She was as well-regarded as an acupuncturist might be today.
There were only fifty thousand residents in all of Andorra, which meant that everyone either knew each other or knew of each other. Because my mother's boutique was so successful, everyone knew her, and they also knew that she was on her second marriage and that she had one son and a young daughter.
So when Madame Amparo approached me in my mother's boutique one day, I knew who she was and didn't rush away from her. On the contrary: I had been using the Ouija board for years and had a great interest in the spirit world and questions of spirituality. After my father's death, I began to use a glass and board to call to the spirits. My little sister, Marika, was my unwitting accomplice, but I was determined to get as many messages as I could from the other side, so I made her move the glass with me, even though she didn't know what we were doing and often laughed, thinking it was a game.
"Eric Ripert," Madame Amparo said, using my full name, as she always did. "I have a vision for you."
I hoped that the vision involved food and a girlfriend because I was hungry and longing for love.
"You have a bright and powerful aura, Eric Ripert," she said, closing her eyes and tracing the air above my head with her small, wrinkled hands. "You will live in a city surrounded by water."
I liked the sound of that—New York, after all, was surrounded by water. Once, when I was in the sixth grade, I took my piggy bank to the travel agency in town to see how much it would cost to fly to New York and spend a weekend at the Waldorf Astoria. They were kind enough not to laugh at me and just encouraged me to keep saving, explaining that I had quite a long way to go.
"You're going to work in a famous restaurant right by the water," she continued. "Tall building, very luxurious…"
Madame Amparo handed me a necklace with a cross on it, a cross of Caravaca, which she implored me to wear around my neck. "The original cross of Caravaca was found in Spain in the fourteenth century," she explained. "It contained a fragment of the very same cross upon which Jesus was crucified. But even a copy of the cross can be potent. This one has the full power of protection because it has been blessed by a priest."
She said that the amulet she had given me, a double cross with two angels, would protect me from violence as long as I wore it. I put the cross on immediately and almost never took it off. I wear it to this day.
I think that somehow Madame Amparo sensed that the violence that would be of greatest danger to me came from within: my short temper, my anger at the injustices that I saw around me, and the rage that had already begun to build inside of me. Or maybe knowing that I was without a father or brothers, she intuited that I had a longing for protection and gave me a symbol to remind me that spiritual protection was always at hand. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 19 | If you asked me at age fifteen what I owned, I would've told you nothing but the clothes my mother still bought for me, my hiking boots, a few books, my skis, and my beloved BMX motorbike. It would take time for me to see that my mother had given me a gift by bringing me to Andorra. Growing up in a small town, with a mother whose business was central to the city, meant that I was surrounded by characters like Jacques and Madame Amparo. They knew me, and what's more, they watched out for me, and dreamed for me of a life beyond the mountain range. Ask me now what I own and I can tell you with confidence that among my richest possessions are the memories I have of the people of Andorra, people like Madame Amparo, who made our village not just a place between France and Spain, but also a bridge between the stark reality of my present and the rich possibility of my future.
That fall, I entered the ninth grade and the time came to decide what educational track to follow. The principal called me into his office and said, "You're not performing well as a student, Eric. We have to find a solution."
Thinking of Jacques and my love of hiking, I told him that I wanted to be a chef or a forest ranger. I was in love with the mountains, but even I knew that I'd never pass the tests on biology, botany, and the like. On the other hand, I knew that I loved to eat. I loved the experience of fine restaurants, and the great chefs of the day were my rock stars. I had a book from the library on the best chefs in France and studied it every night before bed, to the point that I dreamed about Paul Bocuse, Michel Guérard, and Georges Blanc. I'd never been allowed into a kitchen, but I'd been watching from the doorway my whole life. If I learned to cook, maybe I would be able to repay all the people who'd given me such happiness at the table.
After several more conversations, we decided that I would try to get into a top cooking school. The principal spoke to my mother and told her that he had a friend at the hotel school in Perpignan, and he would see what he could do.
Jacques was hacking up lamb for a curry when I told him my decision. He stopped, cleaver in midair, and beamed at me for a second before catching himself.
"They'd better watch out," he said. "You're going to eat all the goddamn dessert."
I remember that afternoon well because a little while later, André, one of Jacques's suppliers, came by with a selection of caviar for him to taste. André, I learned, had also served in the French Legion, and he and Jacques went back and forth with stories about their bravery and the feats of heroism they had undertaken to save the honor of Mother France.
I had eaten at fine restaurants since I was a little kid, but I'd never tasted the tiny black pearls André took from a large jar in an insulated bag. It was a two-kilo tin, almost five pounds of top-notch beluga caviar.
Jacques handed me a spoon—not a tiny mother-of-pearl caviar spoon, but a big soup spoon. Then he dug in, taking a huge scoop of caviar and popping it into his mouth.
I had seen Jacques eat and drink dozens of times by that point. But his reaction to that caviar was quite unlike anything I'd ever witnessed. He was in heaven. I stood with my spoon, unsure how a jar of fish eggs could elicit such a gratified response.
Jacques gestured for me to dig into the caviar, and still unsure, I politely scooped out a small amount. He took the spoon away from me and scooped out a heaping serving. I swallowed it and was surprised at how the flavor filled not only my mouth, but also my nose. I loved it—the saltiness, the richness, and the briny finish as I swallowed it.
"Do you like it?" Jacques asked.
"I love it!"
"Then don't be shy," Jacques said. "If you are to be a chef, these are things you must know. Eat more."
I grabbed another spoonful and closed my eyes. It reminded me of having sea urchins as a boy, at a seaside restaurant in Cannes with my father. He told me that "even if you eat a thousand sea urchins, no two will ever taste the same." I thought the same must be true of caviar: the flavor was that rich, that strange, that complex.
André explained that caviar is one of the world's oldest delicacies. "It predates the invention of champagne and was enjoyed hundreds of years before oysters."
Jacques took another scoop of caviar and winked at André.
"My wife better watch out tonight," Jacques said.
I must have looked puzzled—I had no idea what he meant.
"Caviar," André said, diplomatically, "is a very good mood enhancer. It is used, among the wealthy, to cure depression."
The memory of trying a food for the first time imprints itself into the flavor. A happy memory can make a food delectable, make you crave it, savor it, and, when it is gone, dream about the next time you will have it. Every time I have caviar, I am a teenage boy in Andorra, hanging out with my friend Jacques, eating spoonful after spoonful of beluga, downing it like ice cream.
That September, I found myself at Le Lycée du Moulin à Vent, and I was back again in Perpignan, where I had attended boarding school. It was a well-respected institution where fifteen-year-old boys came to learn how to cook and run hotels, and an even greater number of teenage girls came to learn how to become nurses, beauticians, and hair stylists. I wasn't thrilled to be sharing a dorm with fifty other boys, but somehow I managed to avoid the bizutage—the violent hazing that was a rite of passage for most first-year students. The older boys kept a slight distance, seemingly fascinated by my exotic Andorran background and designer clothes. Being different became an advantage. While the other first-year students were constantly getting their beds upended in the middle of the night, or having water splashed on their faces while they tried to sleep, I was left alone. (Theft was also part of the freshman welcome, but again, not for me.)
At that time, vocational school wasn't a training ground for the great chefs of France. Most of my classmates were guys who just wanted to get a comfortable job with good vacation time at a school cafeteria. A position at a nice hotel was about as high as they aimed. There were more than a few borderline juvenile delinquents in our midst. Instead of sending them to a correctional facility, the courts shipped the boys they thought could be saved to Perpignan for the rigid discipline. As we would soon learn, the "brigade system" was as military as it sounded.
You'd think my mother would have been upset by this blue-collar path—the equivalent of training to be a plumber or electrician. But for her, chefs were men like Bocuse, and restaurants were temples to good taste, rivaled only by her dining room. I wasn't apprenticing a trade; I was on my way to becoming a chef and cooking fine food. I saw it the same way. Sure, I would have loved to become a forest ranger. At fifteen, I thought that all a ranger did was spend his happy days hiking and daydreaming. But in my heart, I wanted to dedicate myself to becoming a renowned chef—no matter where I had to start. The year was 1980. There was no such thing as MTV, much less the Food Network. My goal wasn't to become a celebrity chef, but rather to cook in the best kitchens, creating the most refined food, in the kind of places that my mother read about, the kind of restaurants where one planned a reservation for months in advance because the meal was as valuable as a vacation, a one-of-a-kind journey of textures and tastes.
I made some friends, but when I wasn't studying, I was infinitely more interested in spending my time off with the beauty-school girls. The only problem was, I was too shy to talk to any of them. However, because they outnumbered us, the girls weren't shy at all. They approached me in gangs in the cafeteria and between classes, teasing me about my green eyes and saying they could tell I was a good kisser. Unfortunately, I was too lame to do more than take them to dinner or a movie. Then what? While the guys around me managed to smoothly talk the girls into their beds, I finished school with all the same awkwardness around girls with which I'd started.
The first-year curriculum was basic but thorough: knife skills, sautéing, braising, grilling, broiling, baking, plating and decorating, breaking down animals, filleting, preparing master sauces…Escoffier 101, as laid out by our classic course book, le Gringoire et Saulnier.
Our teacher, Monsieur Chaput, was a hapless guy who'd lived in Andorra, but with whom I felt no bond. He tried hard, but struggled to teach us because he wasn't a very good cook and wasn't very confident in his own mastery of the techniques. Maybe it was for the best that he wasn't very rigorous. Standing on my feet for six hours after spending the morning in classes on management, history, foreign language, and so forth was challenge enough. We were expected to commit recipes and skills to memory after just one demonstration, and it was up to me to make it work.
It was in culinary school that I learned the difference between cooking and eating. Prior to my second stint in Perpignan, I was a fine diner and as I saw it, food was art. At vocational school, I was being taught how to cook, but I was frustrated by how basic the dishes were. I was like a kid who had grown up listening to Chopin, then showed up at music school, never having actually played an instrument. I mean, when you listen to Chopin all the time, you want to become Chopin. And then you go to music school and all you're doing is plunking out do…re…mi for hours at a time. It's boring as hell, and not why you enrolled. I was impatient to create great meals and not so excited about starting with the basics. Why were we spending hours learning how to hold a knife or mince a shallot when we could be making nouvelle cuisine? True, I didn't know how to cut a chicken in eight pieces or make a béchamel. But in the two-and three-star restaurants I had been to, they were way over the béchamel. Still, there I was, in school, making the most basic of dishes—salade Niçoise, potato-leek soup, an omelette.
A typical cooking class went something like this: While we slumped in our chairs, Monsieur Chaput would stand at the blackboard and explain the day's dish, beginning with the technique. Let's say it was navarin printanier, a lamb stew with spring vegetables. He'd say, "This is a braise. We braise the meat because the meat is tough and therefore we have to tenderize it. So we cook it for a long time and we make a stew with it. Here are the techniques to make a stew: You sear the meat in a hot pan; the oil has to be smoking. Then you're going to flip the meat when it's caramelized—don't move it until it's sticking to the bottom of the pan. That's where you get the flavor. Then you're going to remove the meat from the pan. Then you're going to add the brunoise of onion that you've cut and the clove of garlic and the bouquet garni." And he would explain how to make the bouquet garni and how to cut the onion and so on. Still with me?
After we'd changed into our whites, we'd go to the kitchen—a big room divided into stainless-steel work areas—where we'd cook individually, in groups, or in pairs. We'd look at our bon d'économat, a list of ingredients, and get what we needed from the refrigerator. For the stew, we'd start with the lamb. For that dish, we might be separated into groups of four guys standing around a standard-size cutting board, taking turns chopping a couple pounds of lamb into cubes, and yet it still took forever.
Once everyone had finished, Monsieur Chaput would say, "Okay, we'll slice the carrot first, because otherwise the cutting board will smell like onion." You learn how to do a dozen cuts in culinary school and when you see the photos in your textbook, they seem simple enough. They include some you might even use in your own kitchen: large dice, bâtonnet (which are, as they sound, like small batons), medium dice, allumette (think matchstick French fries), small dice, brunoise (very small dice), and fine brunoise (super-small dice). But you have to learn how to do these cuts with a variety of ingredients, and they all respond to the knife differently: celery cuts differently than leek; cutting an apple is not the same as cutting a carrot. If the vegetable is too soft, then a fine brunoise is a nightmare; it becomes like mush on your cutting board, just a horrible baby-food-like texture. And accuracy is important. At home, no one is measuring your matchstick fries. In even a one-star restaurant, an allumette has to be ¼ inch by ¼ inch by 2½ inches, and any sous-chef worth his salt will be able to tell at a glance if you've screwed it up.
Then there is the question of speed. Back in culinary school, it would take my classmates and me ten minutes to dice half a dozen onions. First we had to remember the knife grip that we'd been taught, repositioning our hands a hundred times. Then we had to painstakingly practice the proper onion dice: even slices lengthwise across a halved onion just up to (but not through) the stem end, flipping it on its side and repeating the exact same way, then laying it flat again and running the knife perpendicular to the other cuts. It was boring, but at the same time I was conscious that I needed to master the knife skills that I didn't have. If I wanted to be the best in the class, I was going to have to stay ultrafocused, studying twice as hard and practicing on my own time and weekends when I was home until the movements became second nature. I needed to keep going through the entire process, exactly like learning piano scales. Even Chopin didn't start with a sonata. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 20 | Instinct in the kitchen is something you develop very, very slowly. At sixteen years old, my passion for cutting onions was just not there. Today when I cut an onion, I have fun. It's like a musician warming up by playing a simple song or piano scales. I love the craft and the contact, the sensuality of it. But at school, I cut so poorly that my hand was riddled with blisters. Eventually the joint at my index finger would become so damaged that my finger is permanently bent, ever so slightly. I was in pain and crying because of the damn onion. I didn't really feel anything about cooking. The onion was not talking to me! And ultimately, nothing we made at culinary school was as good as the versions I had eaten before, from Jacques, my mom, or my grandmas, Emilienne and Maguy; or at the Michelin-starred restaurants we would make pilgrimages to.
I was ambitious, sure, but I was also totally clueless. I hated to take the guts out of a chicken and didn't understand why I had to waste time putting my fingers up the cold carcass, touching weird, slimy things. Cleaning fish was even worse.
When I protested, Monsieur Chaput just shook his head.
"This is something that you have to know how to do as a chef," he told me. "It's not optional."
"When I become a chef," I said, "I'm not going to take the guts out of the chicken. My cooks will do it."
"Maybe. But until then, you're going to take them out yourself." He plunked the bird onto my cutting board and that was that.
I stared at the bird and remembered all the times I had seen Jacques cook poulet au bambou. I had never watched him clean the chicken, but that didn't mean he didn't do it. For the first time, it occurred to me that though I'd witnessed my friend working very, very hard, Jacques had done much of the scullery work of cooking while I was still at school. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 21 | Learning how to make a perfect consommé was magical to me. When I was done, the broth was as clear and delicate as water, but it was incredibly tasty. It was my first experience of the importance of craftsmanship. I learned that everything had to be just right: cutting the vegetables just so; simmering the meat with the mirepoix and egg whites for well over an hour; keeping the liquid boiling at the right temperature so that the raft absorbed the impurities—too fast or slow and the consommé would remain cloudy.
Three months into school, I prepared one of my first truly successful soufflés, having first spent days slogging through lessons on how to make a Mornay sauce (béchamel with cheese and egg yolk, and a tiny bit of grated nutmeg). First I beat the egg whites until they were foamy and almost hard to the touch. Then I carefully folded the egg whites with the Mornay. When you make a soufflé, I learned, the mold, or baking dish, has to be very clean. And this is the trick: you paint the mold with softened butter, using upward vertical strokes because the butter painting upward will encourage the soufflé to rise. Then you dust the mold with flour. You have to make sure that the flour sticks cleanly and evenly to the butter, which is also essential if you want the soufflé to rise. Every tiny detail in that dish is very important, and I learned something about myself in the process. I loved the technical aspects of cooking: I loved the way that you had to master chemistry and craftsmanship, heat and timing, to make a dish like a soufflé come out well.
Restaurants love to serve soufflés because the timing shows off the expertise of the kitchen. The soufflé rises and rises. When it reaches its peak, it has a perfect browned color on top—and a soufflé will stay at its peak for all of about thirty seconds. It's a race against the clock to time it perfectly: from the oven to the client's table as fast as you can.
There's a way to cheat with soufflé. You can put in a lot of egg whites but less Mornay. The soufflé will stay high longer, but it won't have the same flavor. As much as I have an appreciation for the aesthetics of a dish, for me flavor was—and still is—everything. I had no interest in cheating. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 22 | When I went home for Christmas, I was feeling pretty bold. I wanted to impress my mother with what I'd learned. So I borrowed her Bocuse cookbook, found the recipe for the legendary foie gras soup that he'd served to President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and rode my motorbike into town to shop. The next night, we were all amazed that I had made my own puff pastry, molded it around the tops of the soup bowls filled with consommé, foie gras, and truffles, and baked it into golden richness. My mother—the most refined eater I knew—couldn't stop telling me how delicious it was. Even Hugo told me he was impressed. Seeing it as a rite of passage, they let me have wine for the first time. By my third glass I was so giddy, I didn't make it to the cheese course. I just went straight to bed.
That year we were also trained in the dining room, the idea being that in May the teachers would decide if we'd return to study as cooks or waiters. Two days a week, we had to set up and serve at the school restaurant, where locals paid ten dollars for a meal cooked and served by students. In addition, we learned the basics of oenology, table setting (why the fork goes on the left and the knife on the right), how to design an efficient dining room, the use of the waiters' station, and so on.
I liked being a waiter. I loved the formality of it, and the way my actions and appearance could help create a mood. You could say it's what my mother had inadvertently trained me for. And I was good at it: having spent so much time in restaurants, it was definitely easier to relate to my experiences as a client than as a cook.
As a kid, I bristled when my mother took me to task about discipline. In my mother's house, even when we were doing something as simple as packing a picnic for a hike, everything had to be perfect: every dish had to be wrapped just so, every napkin had to be folded, glasses had to be spotless before they were packed even though we would be setting them down on a patch of grass covered by an old blanket. In culinary school, I learned what my mother had been trying to teach me all along: there is comfort to be found in order. When you take your time and do things properly—quickly, but without shortcuts—you have the ability to create truly great meals.
In part because of what I witnessed both in my mother's house and at Jacques's restaurant, I took naturally to the nonnegotiable, army-like rules of the brigade system. Under the brigade, the chef is the command leader, and each cook has his station and short list of duties that he has to execute on command with perfect efficiency and consistency. Anyone who steps out of line is immediately—and sometimes brutally—reprimanded in front of the team.
On the one or two weekends a month that I went home to Andorra, I spent all of my travel time plus all of my noneating/nonhiking hours on my bed, studying my recipes from culinary school.
I also made time to see Jacques. Each visit, his influence on my decision to pursue cooking became clearer. He was so proud of me. Even more amazing was that he began treating me almost like a peer. I could tell he enjoyed having a fellow cook with whom he could talk about his passion, professional to professional, and I was happy to show off my growing muscles. Although I was barely a cook, I would swagger and act like a chef.
"So last week I made a canard a l'orange," I'd say, trying to sound casual.
"C'est formidable! How'd you do it?" he'd ask, pulling up a stool. I'd explain the method I'd learned and he'd tell me how he made his, making sure that I knew he was impressed. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 23 | It was up to the teachers, however, to decide if I would continue my studies as a waiter or as a cook.
In many countries, waiting tables is a working-class trade, or something you do just to pay the rent while you pursue a more creative profession. But in France, being a waiter is a proud vocation with a noble history. Accordingly, the dining room instructors were just as passionate about their work as the chef instructors were about theirs. So becoming a waiter began to look very appealing to some of the guys, especially when they found the rapid-fire pace of the kitchen both exhausting and perplexing.
No single person inspired more people to become waiters at the Perpignan culinary institute than the tough but fair manager-instructor of the school's restaurant, Monsieur Moccan. He was like a Dickens character: well into his forties, he was a chubby, slightly hunchbacked, bespectacled figure who strode through the dining room greeting customers with a voice that oozed charm and chastising staff with an entirely different tone that he used quietly, but severely.
Monsieur Moccan thought I was the best waiter in my class, and he took every opportunity to tell me so. He tried to push me, more than anyone, into a front-of-the-house career. But I never wavered. I wanted to work in the kitchen.
Toward the end of the school year, a decision had to be made about the focus of my second year, and consequently my career. Of course, my mind was made up, but I was only sixteen and the school was leaning toward placing me in the dining room. So it was decided that my mother and stepfather would make the drive from Andorra, have lunch in our restaurant, and meet the administrators to discuss my future.
To make the day as special as possible and afford me the opportunity to impress my family, Monsieur Moccan appointed me sommelier for the afternoon. The thought was that with nothing to do but pour wine and shuttle cocktails from the bar to the tables, an accomplished waiter like me would have an easy time of it and put a big smile on my mom's face.
I donned the waiter's uniform (white jacket with epaulettes, bow tie, black trousers, black socks, and leather shoes) and headed to the medium-sized dining room so that I could survey the hundred or so seats.
As the lunch service progressed and the dining room filled to capacity, a prestigious member of the French military came to our little academy. The colonel was accompanied by his wife and another civilian couple. I took their cocktail orders, got the drinks from the barman, and returned with one of our round, rimmed drink trays balanced on my open palm. Before I could get one glass on the table, something happened that had never happened before: I lost control of the tray, turning all four drinks over on the colonel and soaking his beautiful starched uniform. It was such a stupid error. With four glasses on the tray, I should have taken one from the front, but I grabbed one from the back. The tray was now unbalanced and before I knew it, it had toppled. To his credit, the colonel didn't lose his composure. He wasn't happy, but he was a true gentleman about my mistake and he sat there patiently while I patted his back dry.
Monsieur Moccan hurried over to the scene of the disaster and pulled me aside, supportive as ever. "Don't get stressed. The guy's going to be okay. He knows it's the restaurant of the school." At the same time, he wasn't going to let me run away from the problem either. "Go and fill up your tray again, come back, and serve them," he instructed. "You have to finish the job."
So I got the drinks again and came back as fast as I could. It turns out I came back too fast because they hadn't had a chance to clean the floor well. As I approached the colonel's wife, I slipped on the ice cubes from the first disaster and upended the tray on her. I expected her to start screaming, but I think they were all in shock at this point. Nobody said a word as I did my best to clean the table and help her dry herself off.
Once again, Monsieur Moccan whispered to me to gather myself, return to the bar, and finish the job. I remember thinking, Finish? I was finished before I started.
When I went back to the bar for what was now my third attempt to fill the same order, the barman could barely contain his laughter. But, with a sigh, he replenished my tray once again and I gingerly made my way back to my little table of horrors. I delivered three of the drinks without incident, then turned to the colonel. He nodded slightly to me. I nodded in return. And as I reached for his drink, the tray tipped, spilling a few drops of water—which I hadn't wiped off the tray—on his head.
That was it. The colonel shot up out of his chair and, in his commanding baritone, boomed, "That's enough! Get this person out of here!"
I flinched, taking a few nervous steps backward. But he wasn't yelling at me: he was yelling at Monsieur Moccan, who was suddenly nowhere to be found. Then I spotted him, through the little window of the kitchen door, laughing uncontrollably, unable to compose himself and return to the dining room.
"As for you…" the colonel shouted at me. And I stood there while he dressed me down in full view of the customers, who watched in awe, my mother slowly turning green, struggling to understand why the school so desperately wanted her son to become a waiter.
I never made it to my mother's table that day and I'm sure I didn't impress her, especially with where I ended up next: demoted to dishwasher. But at least I had found my way back to the kitchen. I never came out again.
Luckily, the kind principal, M. Blaize, and the teachers who decided about internships recognized my ambition and secured me an internship at Le Sardinal, one of the most "gourmet" restaurants in the region. It also had the reputation of being run by the toughest chef. Two months there was supposed to test my determination, solidify my skills, and cure me of any prima donna–ish behavior—or so they told me later. Meanwhile, my less ambitious classmates were sent to cafeterias, chain-hotel restaurants, and tiny restaurants in tinier towns.
One of the teachers drove me an hour to the coast, winding through the seaside town of Collioure (known for its anchovies) and past the treacherously steep vineyards of Banyuls until we reached Banyuls-sur-Mer. The seaside village was made up of pink buildings with aqua shutters and terra-cotta roofs, and a few tall, cream-colored apartment buildings whose wrought-iron balconies looked onto the gray-pebbled inlet and the flat sea beyond. Families walked along the short boardwalk, stopping in waterside cafés. Compared to Perpignan, it was the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. Except I probably strolled that boardwalk only once that summer. I don't think I even swam.
My teacher took me down an alleyway behind the main street to show me to my room, informing me as we neared the door that I would be sharing it with a waiter and another intern. I couldn't decide if the term "rathole" or "shithole" was a better description of that hot, dank, windowless box, which smelled like booze and night sweat. I threw my suitcase under the camping cot that would be mine for the next two months and followed my teacher to the restaurant.
Le Sardinal wasn't a two-star, or even a "Bib Gourmand." It looked like a restaurant where vacationing couples came for moules marinières when they could get a sitter at the hotel. The long, narrow room had a nondescript bar on the left and simple tables (at least they had tablecloths) on the right. There was a piano set up near the kitchen entrance. It was beyond basic. My teacher saw the disappointment on my face. "Don't be a snob, Ripert. There are no dessert trolleys, but you're still going to work harder than you've ever worked in your life."
The chef, who was about thirty, had a ruddy face and wild eyes tinged with exhaustion. He sized me up without a word and led me into the kitchen the size of a phone booth (of which he took up about half), where four of us would be sharing space. The signature dish of the restaurant was a classic anchovy preparation called anchois à la crème de vieux vinaigre de Banyuls. For the dish, the plate would be smeared with a mixture of aged Banyuls vinegar and crème fraîche. Then we'd top the mixture with twelve anchovies and serve it with toast.
My job, I learned, would be preparing pounds and pounds of anchovies for the lunch rush. Next to my sliver of counter was a bucket containing about twelve kilos of anchovies packed in salt. Chef informed me that my job was to carefully remove the bones from each tiny fillet, then put the deboned anchovy into another jar filled with olive oil. By lunchtime, my hands had gone from tingling to numb.
Within the first hour of service, we'd sold more than forty plates of anchovies. I could barely keep up with the demand. It was a little stunning to see how hours of prep could evaporate within minutes, leaving you behind and in the weeds for the rest of service. Le Sardinal was apparently the spot, judging by the lines of people waiting in the plaza for a plastic table on the terrace. The chef was slamming out an impossible amount of food with his commis, a Perpignan intern-turned-employee (the other intern and I were only allowed to do prep work at first). From eleven o'clock on, there was no room for error—no room for anything—and the mood was incredibly tense. By two on my first afternoon, when the maître d', clearly drunk, told the chef to hurry up on an order, the chef simply picked up a stack of heavy serving platters from the pass and whacked him over the head. After just one blow, forehead muting the sound of the metal, the maître d' passed out.
The chef packed up his knives and left through the front door, the owner screaming after him.
Somehow, he'd returned by dinner.
Many times that summer at Le Sardinal, I felt like I'd been hit in the head with a stack of platters. Six days a week, I worked from 8:30 in the morning until midnight. Most of my time was spent preparing the mise en place or peeling the eighty pounds of potatoes we'd need for fries, pommes purée, and duck fat–roasted pommes sarladaises. Then lunch service, then an hour off before dinner preparations began. The real battle started at night, as orders flew over the pass and the four of us worked back to back in furious silence to keep up. When it got too busy, the chef simply pushed us away so we didn't destroy everything. Even though I was more of a spectator in the whole process, the adrenaline in the kitchen was addictive; I was fascinated and terrorized and excited, and I wanted not only to survive but also to succeed. I wasn't learning haute cuisine, but I was learning speed, discipline, and, perhaps most important, stamina—things they hadn't taught us in school. My teacher was right: I'd never worked so hard in my life…or so I thought at the time.
When my mother visited, she was shocked by the restaurant's, shall we say, rustic charm. (The owner himself played saxophone during dinner, accompanied by a pianist.) She was even more upset by my living quarters and threatened to call the school to complain. "It smells like booze and vomit in here!" she said when she saw where I was sleeping. "What have you been doing?" I reassured her that it was my drunk roommate, who often threw up in his bed. Before she left, she gave me money and made me promise that on my rare days off, I'd go stay in the closest three-star hotel. Instead I used the money to take the chef to the hotel for drinks.
The chef was tough and relentlessly focused on the kitchen. At first I could tell he was pissed that the school had sent him a spoiled rich kid. But as the weeks went on, he saw my determination, one kilo of potatoes and anchovies at a time. Eventually, I was allowed to help with salads and desserts. As proud and grateful as I was, I still made stupid mistakes. Once, Chef dragged a box of twenty-five duck carcasses into the kitchen and told me to butcher them and freeze the breasts. With each magret, I slowly gained speed and dexterity. It took me about ten minutes per duck, which is a lot of time for a restaurant kitchen. Four hours later, I put the fifty breasts in one stack, loaded them into a giant freezer bag, and went home to take a quick nap before service.
Two days later, his head in the freezer, Chef screamed my name in a tone that made me fear for my life. He emerged holding a frozen tower of duck.
"Ripert, you bagged them all together?" he said. Everyone in the kitchen stopped and stared at me. Even the waiters came to watch. "How the hell am I supposed to pull one out and cook it? Didn't they teach you to wrap them individually? What kinds of morons are they turning out at that dump? Now get a knife and try to cut off three breasts without killing yourself."
My punishment that afternoon was to wash down the kitchen, including the dreaded salamander, which was used to broil dishes just before they went out. The thing was so crusted with heat-baked food and grease, I could have scrubbed until dawn just trying to remove the first layer of glazed-on muck. "Whatever you do," Chef said on his way out, "don't use water on it."
As soon as he was gone, I turned the high-pressure nozzle from the sink on it and had it shining in no time. So much for punishment.
When Chef came back for dinner, he nodded and pursed his lips, impressed but clearly skeptical—there was no way I could have gotten it so clean without water. He reached up to turn on the switch and froze, stuck to the metal. His face turned white and his big body slumped to the floor. I'd electrocuted the son of a bitch. He looked up at me silently, too stunned to be angry. However hurt he was, I was sure I was dead. But he gradually roused himself and managed to make it through service in la-la land. The next day I learned a lot about scrubbing toilets.
By the time my two months were up, I had learned a year's worth of lessons. But that still left me a long way to go. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 24 | Luckily, my second-year teacher was a no-bullshit lifer named Monsieur Korbel, who had zero patience for mediocrity. Korbel had worked on La France, an ocean liner legendary for its cooks and waiters—many of whom had gone on to work at Le Pavillon in New York—and come up in the same generation as Jean-Jacques Rachou and André Soltner. In Korbel's world, Escoffier's haute cuisine was the ideal, and the chef had the power to demand absolute perfection from his brigade. He had no problem screaming at us or tossing a pan in the sink when one of us made a mistake—luckily the school wouldn't allow him to go any further. If we made a tomato salad that had a single seed in it, he literally threw it back at us and screamed, "I'm not a pig! I don't eat like that. Make it perfectly or go home." Then he'd grab a fresh tomato and a paring knife and, within seconds, transform the tomato into a lifelike rose, just to show us how precise you can be when you become a master of technique.
He was tough but good. We all knew that we had the best teacher in the school, and we were happy to be pushed by him, competing to make an exact consommé or vol au vent. Finally, with each new dish, I was beginning to feel passion. Through conducting hours and hours of lessons and then standing over my shoulder in the kitchen, he taught me craftsmanship, discipline, and cleanliness: how to make the perfect potage cultivateur, a soup with dozens of pieces of diced vegetables, each of which has to be precisely cut; how not to talk, to stay in my station, to say, "Yes, Chef!"; how to keep my station and my person impeccably clean during service, and to execute all of his orders without questioning them. (Not talking was almost the hardest, right after remembering to clean my stove as I worked.) More important, he started to open up the instinct in me: I'd be working at the counter, and just by listening to what was going on in the pan on the stove behind me, I would know when it was time to add the onions or remove the meat. I was also learning timing—how, say, in ten minutes I'd have to be ready to send my sole parisienne to the pass. It was good experience, but it wasn't yet in my bones.
Outside of the classroom, a side of me that I didn't know I had also began to awaken. Both years, our dorm master was a young divinity student named Raymond Centène. He looked like an orthodox Johnny Cash—black clothes, long beard, very austere. But all the students loved him. This was a guy who would get up at six A.M. to drive me to the train station on a Saturday morning without expecting a thank-you. When he caught older students hazing freshmen, he brought swift justice to the dorm, which we accepted without question. He always had time to listen to our problems and talk about tough subjects. And despite his severe appearance and ultraconservative royalist ways, he was incredibly funny and warm. There was something pure and generous about him that we all responded—and, in my case, aspired—to.
As embarrassed as I was by my family's flashy lifestyle, I was entrenched in the material world of Andorra, where how many stores you owned and how big your house was determined whether or not you were a good man. Raymond looked into your heart and soul to find your goodness, and being around him made me realize that I had been looking at whether or not you had a Mercedes. Although I'd spent my childhood in a designer clothing boutique, my time in the mountains of Andorra had instilled a spirituality that I was only just beginning to sense; I had found a kind of religion in nature. Being around Raymond brought me to realize that it had been blocked by my extremely competitive, materialistic side, which at the time was more powerful than any spiritual ambition. His kindness and compassion made me feel that there was a better, more profound way to be in the world. I'd been looking at it all wrong.
I was always trying to run into Raymond in the dorm or the cafeteria, where we would have intense philosophical and religious conversations after I'd finished my homework. My mother was never religious, and even as a kid I was skeptical of my aunts' devotion. (My aunt Monique loved to tell the story of when, as a toddler, I refused to take communion with her at the cathedral in Nîmes until the day I saw the priest putting something in her mouth. Apparently I ran screaming up the aisle, "I want a cookie too!") I would challenge Raymond to explain—seriously—how Adam and Eve fell from the sky because she ate an apple. I mean, believing that, in the twentieth century? Good one, Catholics! He'd say patiently, "Oh, it's an allegory; it means X." He would try to rationalize the stories of the Bible and explain them to me in a different way, showing me that faith and intelligence could go hand in hand.
Not once did he try to convert me. He never had to tell me what I was doing wrong, either. All I had to do was listen to my own answers during our debates about, say, the value of money. He would ask me what was so important about being rich or famous (not that I was necessarily looking to be either, but I definitely didn't want to be poor), and obviously there's no smart way to defend the idea that you want to be rich versus spiritual and compassionate. I was shocked into silence by the emptiness of my answers. In that quiet way, he unlocked something in my heart and mind that made me question my values and my selfishness.
He also let us come up against our own faults (such as that selfishness) in other ways. Once he organized a weekend camping trip for a bunch of us on nearby Mont Canigou. The idea was to be together as a team, kind of like Boy Scouts. But I saw it as a way to show off. I told everyone how I had the best hiking boots and the best backpack, and what a great hiker I was. I was determined to be the first on top of the mountain. It was two hours before anyone else caught up to me. And then we realized that a slow kid had gotten lost in everyone's rush to keep up. Raymond was furious. My ambition had ruined his attempt to show us solidarity and teach us how to help one another. As he berated me, I became determined to be more compassionate and generous. To be more like him, at peace with his inner life rather than attached to the material crap surrounding it. At sixteen, the seed for aspiring to goodness was planted.
In order to graduate at the end of two years, we had to be able to perfectly prepare two of the 120 dishes that we'd committed to memory. During the oral exam portion of the practice, we would be asked to recite instructions for a few of the dishes, from the list of ingredients to the step-by-step preparation. (I was asked to explain how to make pork curry, down to the correct measurement of salt and exact browning time for the one-inch cubes of meat.) Then we would go into the kitchen and each find a box of ingredients at our station.
"Ripert, do you know what dishes these ingredients are for?"
"Um, not yet?"
"You will make a goulash and a rice pilaf with langoustine velouté. You have three hours. Good luck."
The goulash. One of the dishes I was worried I wouldn't memorize correctly. I looked at my meat and vegetables, veal stock, and paprika, and got to work as calmly and methodically as I could. I cut the beef into neat cubes and sautéed it right away, because I knew I needed to get the braise going before I could do anything else. I began to hear M. Korbel's voice as I seared the meat on each side of the cube, taking care not to let it stick too much to the pan or get too dark, just enough to caramelize and create a flavor concentrate that would later be absorbed by the onions. Then I deglazed the pan with white wine, added my vegetable garnish, and let it cook. Meanwhile, teachers were coming around and taking notes over our shoulders, asking questions and murmuring a little bit of advice (in my case, don't forget the tomato paste). I could hear one of my classmates crying from the stress, but I stayed calm. In went the tomato paste with the onions and paprika. Finally, the fond de veau, or veal stock, was poured in and I left it to simmer. I could tell from the rich aroma that M. Korbel had taught me well. Now I had to tourner a basket of potatoes, giving each one seven neat, even faces so that they were identically carved into a shape something like an American football.
The rice pilaf was technically trickier: I packed the cooked rice into a baba au rhum mold and prayed that it wouldn't crack when I inverted it onto the platter. It did, but not so much that the creamy seafood sauce—made from roux and a fish fumet and mussel juice, then poured inside the ring—leaked out. While guys around me cursed their burned dishes, I decorated mine with bright red crayfish heads and quickly took it to the dining room before the rice dam broke. There, our teachers were joined by chefs from the region, who would judge our food based on taste, presentation, and technique. The ring, miraculously, held together, and I passed.
By the end of culinary school, I felt I was on my way to mastering the basics. I wasn't the best in my class—that was my friend Raymond Victor, one of the only students who had actual restaurant experience—but I had ambition. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 25 | As I climbed out of the Pont Marie métro station in Paris, I couldn't help but think of Madame Amparo, the psychic from Andorra, and her prediction for my future. I was on my way to my first day of work at the only three-star Michelin restaurant out of eighteen establishments that had responded to my résumé.
It was a rainy September morning and I was so excited that every sense was hyperalert: I can still see the pigeon gray of the Parisian sky, smell the exhaust from all of the cars and scooters, and hear them rushing past me. Rarely in my life have I felt so present.
As I followed my new map across the bridge linking the Île St.-Louis to the Left Bank, I fell into a trance, oblivious to the tourists brushing past me on their way to Notre-Dame. I was lured ahead by the strangely familiar limestone building rising at least six stories along the far bank of the Seine. Tourists were posing in front of the grand wrought-iron doors beneath an Art Nouveau glass canopy that seemed to float along the Quai de la Tournelle. The city's sounds fell away. All I could hear was Amparo's voice as she described the restaurant where I would work one day, in a city surrounded by water. I had hoped that her prediction would land me in New York, imagining all the skyscrapers there where a guy like me could learn the art and craft of being a chef. But when I stood in front of La Tour d'Argent and gazed up at its classic seventeenth-century façade, it felt like exactly where I was meant to be.
La Tour d'Argent was so old and so storied that it is even referenced in Proust's masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past: "I have to return tomorrow to Paris to dine at the Tour d'Argent or at the Hotel Meurice….M. Boutroux is to address us there about certain séances of spiritualism—pardon me, certain spirituous evocations which he has controlled."
I had been hired as a commis, or junior chef, and La Tour was celebrating its four-hundredth birthday when I arrived. There are pictures of me, dressed in medieval gear, wheeling out a giant cake at one of the many celebrations the restaurant hosted that year. But that would come later. I looked down at my leather briefcase, filled with the knives that my mother had given me for graduation from the Lycée du Moulin à Vent in Perpignan.
The letter told me to enter through the staff door, which was around the side. I climbed the grand oak spiral staircase six flights to the kitchen, where my stomach sank. The kitchen at my school was more modern, and five times as large. The doors to the garde manger refrigerator were wooden, bleached and pitted from a century of nightly scrubbing. The central stove, called a Waldorf, was a monster: fifteen feet of cast iron with a glowing red center that dared you to go near it. (The guy showing me around told me that I was lucky: a decade earlier, they'd still been using a charcoal-fed stove.) That beast made the kitchen hotter than St. Tropez in August.
When I entered the kitchen, twenty white toques rose from above steaming copper pots to show the damp, greenish-white faces of the cooks. They sneered at me as I discreetly dabbed away the sweat on my brow with the sleeve of my new leather jacket, which I thought made me look tough. Maybe not.
Even though they weren't that much older than me, these were men: fast and mean, muscular from real work, reeking of sweat and garlic. They'd been apprenticing in great kitchens since they were thirteen. By twenty, they were old masters. Me? I was seventeen, thin and wiry, with a culinary school education that didn't hold a candle to their years of training. A visible wave of excitement went through the room as the cooks picked up on a new scent, one that was even stronger than the aromas of melted butter, sautéing shallots, and that legendary roasting duck: fresh meat.
The sous-chef, Jean—a short, square, powerful man—told me to go downstairs and change, then come back up and wait for Maurice Guillouët, the chef poissonier, or head fish chef, who would be overseeing me on his station. Maurice arrived in his jeans and T-shirt, brushing away the wild hair that framed his gruffly handsome face. He was twenty-one—which at the time seemed so much older—and I immediately wanted to impress him. He had the kind of dangerous, rock-star charisma that comes from those who are truly good at what they do. That he arrived to work each day on a motorbike only added to his coolness in my eyes.
"Go mince some shallots while I change," Maurice said, jutting his chin toward his station before disappearing back down the staircase.
I ducked around as the other cooks were prepping for lunch service, reducing whole fish and vegetables into perfect portions with a precision and efficiency that would elude me for months. I found my spot at the end of the fish station. (And spot is the word: there were about six inches between myself and the next guy on either side.) I took one of my knives out of my suddenly ridiculous-seeming briefcase, grabbed a shallot with a trembling hand, and, before I'd even removed the skin, sliced open my finger.
I ran downstairs to the locker room. When I entered, Maurice was pulling on his pristine whites in the dingy changing area.
"Maurice? Hi! I'm sorry," I said, holding out my bloody finger. "Can you please help me find a Band-Aid?"
"You've got to be kidding. Where are you from again?"
"Andorra."
"Here," Maurice said, handing me a bandage.
We headed upstairs, the white paper toque I'd been given already sliding off my head.
When we got back to my station, I grabbed my knife, determined to prove that I could cook. Maurice took one look at me and his face fell.
"For Christ's sake. Do you even know how to use a knife?"
"Of course I do. I just graduated from culinary school."
That wasn't the smartest move. Back then, cooking was a blue-collar trade, like plumbing or bricklaying—not a prestigious career for boys whose parents took them to good restaurants. Real cooks—like the guys at La Tour—hated guys from culinary school. They believed that the only way to become a great chef was through apprenticeship and by surviving the physical and verbal abuse of the kitchen, not by memorizing recipes and taking notes and making a soufflé once a semester like I'd done for the last two years. Maurice laid into me, saying that I was a culinary-school baby. If I was going to cook three-star food for people, if I actually expected to produce dishes like quenelles de brochet and lobster bisque, I'd better learn how to hold a damn knife. Then he segued into a rant about how the chef must have searched high and low for the most unqualified commis in a special attempt to make his life hell.
Tirade over, he asked me to make the hollandaise, adding, as though it was nothing, "Thirty-two yolks, okay?"
"Oui, Chef," I dutifully replied.
This seemingly easy task would be the thing that broke me, showing me the gap between culinary school knowledge and real restaurant chops. To start, it took me almost twenty minutes to separate the eggs. None of the guys around me lifted their heads from their stations when I asked what to do with the whites. They were too deep in their tasks, moving with a smooth, mechanic urgency as they prepared their mise en place for the first service, slicing leeks as fine as eyelashes and "turning" carrots into perfect barrel shapes. Stopping for ten seconds to answer a basic question was unthinkable.
When I approached the Waldorf with my pan, the hairs on my forearms curled up and singed into nothing. I tried to negotiate for my own twenty inches of space with a cook who was calmly adding lobsters to a massive pot of stock. But even then, I didn't have the strength to move thirty-two yolks and make a light and foamy sabayon. I didn't know to feel the temperature of the pan with the back of my hand. I didn't know how to instinctively intuit the right temperature to cook the eggs so that they would become that magical sauce. I didn't know and I couldn't ask—this was La Tour, not cooking school—so I failed, at the simplest of tasks. Maurice was so shocked when he discovered my incompetence that he said nothing, just took the pan out of my hand and looked upward, as if demanding celestial intervention.
Everything he asked me to do that first day was an echo of the hollandaise. I couldn't do it, I didn't know how. I wasn't able to help, when help is what a commis is there to do. Maurice was obviously running out of patience and struggled to come up with a task that I could actually handle. He sent me to get chervil and clean it for garnish—the most humiliating job in the kitchen, since it required no skill. Picking herbs was not where I should be starting. I turned toward the refrigerator and paused.
"What's chervil?" I asked. "Is that like parsley?" I mean, I'd heard of chervil, but I'd never seen it. Our school couldn't afford expensive herbs.
At this point, Maurice lost it.
"Nom de dieu! Nom de dieu!" he started screaming (the worst curse if you're Catholic), waving his arms in the air. "This is total bullshit! I'm going to talk to the chef." I'd totally killed the guy.
For a moment, everyone in the kitchen put down their knives and stared. Shocked and ashamed, I almost collapsed from the weight of the realization that everything I thought about myself was wrong. Maurice didn't think I knew how to cook. I was so stunned, I couldn't even say I was sorry. I just got my ass over to the refrigerator to find any herb I didn't recognize and prayed it was chervil. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 26 | I felt weak at work and the sense of vulnerability and panic only deepened when I was away from the all-consuming rush of the kitchen. On a weekend visit home to Andorra, I ran into Madame Amparo.
"You're having a tough time," she said, sympathetically.
No psychic ability was necessary to see that was true. I was pale from all my time in the kitchen and I had deep circles underneath my eyes, a very different picture from the tanned athletic kid I'd been when I'd left for my first big restaurant job.
"And you were mugged in Paris," she said.
This was also true; my mother had told her. But what she said next shocked me because it was something no one else in the world knew.
She peered at me knowingly and said, "You weren't wearing your cross of Caravaca. The chain broke and you left it on the nightstand to the right of your bed."
She was right. One night, coming home late from work, I was mugged in the metro. Two guys attacked me on an escalator. One guy held a knife to my neck and I was terrified that with the movement of the escalator, he might slip and slit my throat before I could hand over my watch and my wallet. The minute the men ran away, I reached up and instinctively touched my neck. I wasn't wearing the cross that Madame Amparo gave me. The chain had broken and it had been on my nightstand, just as she'd said. I had never doubted Madame Amparo's ability before, but now I knew for sure that she was the real deal. I'd gone out without the necklace she'd blessed for my protection and I was almost harmed. I vowed not to leave home without it again.
As much as Maurice hated working with me, Chef Bouchet made it clear that the situation wasn't going to change. "No matter what, he's staying. You're dealing with him," he was told. Before, Maurice had been manning the fish station by himself, sending out dishes for 120 covers a night. If he got rid of me, he'd be back on his own. But more important, no one said no to Dominique Bouchet.
At thirty-two, Chef Bouchet was young to be running the three-star kitchen at Paris's most storied restaurant. But he had the natural authority of someone twice his age. Handsome, powerful, and disciplined, he looked more like a movie star than a guy who'd spent a career behind the pots. Thirty years before the invention of Food Network and the popularity of celebrity chefs on TV, Bouchet glided through the kitchens of Paris like there was a camera following him. His every move was elegant and he executed complicated dishes with ease. At a time when the top chefs of the world were messy, slovenly characters with outsize personalities that said they didn't give a rip, like my friend Jacques, Bouchet was different. Even the way he put on his apron and toque was perfection, crisp and flawless. He was still a young man, but Bouchet had taken over one of Paris's oldest, most venerable restaurants. We were all in awe of him. He was the savior of La Tour d'Argent.
Bouchet had apprenticed with the great Burgundian chef Marcel Pouilly. And, like me, he'd attended culinary school. Paris at the time was buzzing with culinary talent. Among them, one chef stood out as the one to beat: Joël Robuchon. Bouchet and Robuchon had crisscrossed paths throughout their twenties at Paris's finest hotels and restaurants, always with Robuchon a little ahead of Bouchet. They had worked together at the opening of the Concorde Lafayette, with Robuchon as executive chef and Bouchet as one of his sous-chefs. Then Robuchon went to Hotel Nikko and Bouchet to Jamin. But when he was just thirty years old, Robuchon made a play and successfully purchased Jamin. He needed to discreetly get Bouchet out of the way, so he arranged for Jacques Sénéchal, the chef of La Tour d'Argent, to move to the Nikko. Robuchon then moved Bouchet to La Tour d'Argent and kept Jamin to himself. The rumor was that Robuchon was part of a secret society of Masons and that the extent of his power ranged much further than his stovetops. More than the rising prince of the culinary world, he was regarded almost as a mystic who could influence the rich and powerful at will.
With Bouchet safely ensconced at La Tour d'Argent, Robuchon hired a team of young, talented chefs, and set about reimagining the restaurant as an innovative showplace for an evolution of the increasingly popular "nouvelle cuisine." Within a little more than a year, Jamin was awarded an unheard-of two stars from the Michelin guide. Two stars were impossible for a small, newish restaurant in a city where many of the dining establishments had decades upon decades of experience. Robuchon became the talk of Paris. The restaurant had only a dozen tables and soon the waiting list was months long.
That was in the early 1980s, and the food world in Paris, which had so long prided itself on tradition, did not know what hit them. Having mastered the classics at such a young age, Robuchon became bored and curious, like a young Picasso playing with cubism. He reinvented the form of formal dining, stripping away the artifice of heavy sauces, and discarding old methods of cooking poultry and meat for hours at a time as if every meal should be as heavy as a Sunday roast. At Jamin, Robuchon quickly gained a reputation as a genius and a tyrant. There was no such thing as good enough in his kitchen, and you could taste the demands he placed on his staff in each and every plate. There were no dried herbs, only fresh. A sprig of parsley wasn't tossed raw onto a plate but rather flash fried, like tempura. Robuchon was the first chef in Paris to roast a rack of lamb in an herb-infused salt crust. He seared the lamb and then put it in a salt crust and cooked it very slowly. With this technique, you got the benefit of the meat both being seared and cooking very gently, absorbing herbs, flavor, and saltiness from the crust. It was presented in the dining room for show and then removed from the crust and served to the client.
Robuchon also reimagined the classic île flottante, or floating island. One part of the dessert is a meringue that floats in a crème anglaise. Robuchon baked the dessert in the oven in a mold and then studded the meringue with pink pralines. All of a sudden, a dish that had fallen off restaurant menus was reimagined as something new: visually beautiful and texturally different, with its almost crisp mold. In his twenties, Robuchon had won all of the major cooking competitions in France. These illustrious formal competitions were prestigious platforms where a chef could show off an elaborate, almost over-the-top formal aesthetic as well as a commanding mastery of technique. Robuchon had first amazed the food world at these contests, and he brought his drive to wow the judges and blast the competition to every dish he created at Jamin. His mashed potatoes remain perhaps his most famous dish, and they exemplify what his goal has been all along: to reinvent each ingredient and in the process transform something as humble as a potato into something almost noble.
From that aerie of culinary reworkings, Bouchet came to La Tour d'Argent. At La Tour, Bouchet was a hurricane of modernity, elevating and transforming the stale and stodgy menu into something exciting and new. His fights with the owner, Claude Terrail, were legendary: we knew it at the stoves, and the food critics knew it too. To survive, La Tour d'Argent needed to evolve. It was clear that Terrail thought merely hiring a younger chef would convince the media that the old place had been given new life, but Bouchet, trained by Robuchon, did not intend to be merely window dressing. He fought Terrail hard, and more often than not, he won. It was thanks to his modern vision that La Tour began to introduce lighter, nouveau dishes such as a warm poached scallop salad on top of mâche and monkfish, cooked à la vapeur with a sauce vin blanc on the bottom. At the same time, Bouchet peppered the menu with the classics that made Terrail happy, meals that patrons of La Tour had enjoyed for over a century—the pressed canard au sang, duck with green peppercorn sauce, the quenelles de brochet (pike) with sauce mousseline: hollandaise with whipped cream.
Bouchet's vision extended to the front of the house as well. La Tour was known for its arrogant tuxedoed waiters who had been serving there for decades and did as they pleased. Bouchet insisted that the waiters respect the system: no more sloppy behavior, walking behind the pass, the long metal shelf where dishes were plated and left for pickup.
I was incredibly lucky to have Bouchet on my side. One of his gifts was his ability to see the big picture. He assembled his team as if they were soccer players: you need the guy who can score the goals, but you also need guys who can pass, and young guys who can hustle. A good kitchen staff has to have a mix of skills and backgrounds, so that everyone is bringing something different to the table.
How did I end up at one of the crown jewels of the Paris restaurant scene when my knife skills were for shit? The answer, I would later learn, lay in Bouchet's ambition for change. He didn't need another line cook who had been trained to do things the old way. Bouchet was intrigued that I was from Andorra, another part of the world, with perhaps a different palate. He thought it was good for all those restaurant-trained blue-collar guys to mix it up with a culinary school grad. He liked that I came from a family where fine dining was part of our experience; as a young commis, this gave me an unusual perspective on the front of the house. But mostly I think he could tell how motivated I was. I may have been just seventeen years old, but I was clean cut, obedient, and hardworking. And hard work carried me through everything those first few months because I was still learning how to be a cook.
The first week, it took me ten minutes to julienne a quarter-cup of leeks. (It took the other cooks about forty-five seconds.) I badly needed to improve, so during my lunch break, I'd hop the métro two stops to my studio apartment on rue Broca and practice cutting carrots in my own tiny kitchen. I knew that once I came back in the afternoon, Maurice would be yelling at me to speed up. I needed to have everything ready on time for dinner—once service began, I'd get a sickening knot in my stomach from the pressure; it took all of my strength to keep my hands from shaking. As soon as the chef who ordered fire started screaming over the microphone, yelling, "You fucker! Where is that sole?" you could feel the entire kitchen tense up. I would get so flustered, I couldn't hear a thing.
Two weeks in, I gave myself an opportunity to spend considerably more time on my home knife-skills study. I was trying to lift a fifty-liter pot of boiling lobster stock for bisque—a two-person job—and spilled it all over me. Rather than ask for help with it, I had grabbed both handles and gone red in the face as I tried to hoist the three-foot-tall pot. My muscles instantly stung from the strain: stomach, back, legs. I thought I had a good grasp, but there was too much liquid inside. It started to tilt and my hands were scalded by the bubbling stock. In a moment of panic, I lost control. In school, they trained us to immediately rip open our jacket and tear off our pants if we got boiling liquid on ourselves. I stripped off my checked pants, but I couldn't unlace my shoes in time. When I finally peeled off my socks, layers of skin came off with them as I huddled in the middle of the kitchen in my boxers and toque. My injury didn't stop the cooks from calling me out for my error—"Look at all that fucking lobster stock we have to redo, you waste of space!"—while Maurice and Jean wrapped my feet in kitchen towels and accompanied me to the doctor around the corner. The doctor informed me I'd be laid up for at least three weeks.
After a week in my top-floor studio, I was a little faster with the carrots—I was spending about two hours on them every afternoon. But I was miserable: embarrassed that I'd made such a huge mistake, anxious to get back and prove myself worthy of my job. So I showed up at the kitchen in blue Sebago boat shoes, which I was still unable to lace because my feet were so swollen and bloody, desperate to get back to work.
"Get the fuck out of this kitchen!" Jean screamed, although I could tell that he actually felt bad for me. Maurice took one look at me and sent me home for another ten days. It must have been like a vacation for him.
I was so bored, so homesick, it was almost unbearable. I had no friends or family, and I hated that damn Parisian weather. But I knew I was living my dream to work in a three-star restaurant, and failure was not an option. I was painfully aware that this was the chance of a lifetime. I had to learn, and learn quickly, no matter how much abuse I had to take. If I had to glue myself to the stove in order to stay there, I would do it. I went through hundreds of leeks and carrots, each one taking what seemed like an hour to finish.
When I needed a break, I would hobble over to the Pompidou Center and hang out in the plaza, watching the acrobats and guys doing tricks.
One morning, I found an old man doing tarot-card readings. He was no Madame Amparo, but I really believed in these things and needed whatever comfort or memory of home I could find.
"How much for a reading?" I asked.
I could see him sizing up the leather jacket and nice shoes that had been a present from my mother.
"Ten francs," he barked.
This was about two U.S. dollars at the time, and probably twice what he usually charged. But I was intrigued, so I opened my wallet and handed him the cash.
He gestured for me to sit on the dark green metal chair opposite him and then he shuffled the cards.
"Cut the deck," he ordered.
I did.
Then he laid out three cards. Each, he explained, would tell me something about my past, my present, or my future.
The card for my past was the Tower, which he said spoke of disaster, upheaval, and sudden changes.
"Are any of these true of your childhood?" he asked.
I shrugged. After all, wasn't the whole process of growing up one of change and upheaval?
When he flipped the center card, the one that he said embodied my present, it was an upside-down Three of Pentacles, which he said spoke to a lack of teamwork and poor work skills in my current occupation.
I was beginning to feel that the ten francs were well worth it.
"What about the future?" I asked, eagerly. "Am I going to be in Paris for a long time?"
"You see that card?" he said, gesturing at the Hanged Man. "You're stuck." |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 27 | Once I made it back into the kitchen, Maurice greeted me with grudging respect. It seemed like the bloody boat-shoe incident had made him finally understand how dedicated I was. Not that he made things any easier for me: the first thing he did was tell everyone the carrot-practice secret I'd revealed to him. And then he gave me twice as much work. But this time, I was up for it.
Within a few weeks, I'd figured out how to shell the langoustines (the secret: dislocate the first two sections of the body with your fingers and twist, then gently but firmly press on the tail while you pull out the meat). By the end of a month, I could finally handle the heat of the stove and had pretty much mastered the dreaded hollandaise. Watching Maurice make the sauce again and again (and listening to him yell at me again and again), I came to understand how to move the large pan on and off the heat—pulling it out, putting it back, pulling it out, putting it back—keeping a finger on its copper base to make sure that it was warm, never hot. I learned to make a continuous figure eight with my whisk to ensure that all sides of the pan were touched, rather than whisking in round circles as you might for a Chantilly. And I gained the fortitude to keep it up for the twenty minutes needed to get the yolks foamy, switching hands when the cramping got too painful. Sometimes the old guys would come by and make fun of me, watching my forearms burn.
Still, by mastering those thirty-two yolks, I had done something right. I was becoming a real cook.
Paris is magical for tourists. But when you work in dark, almost windowless rooms until the middle of the night, the city is like a fairground after the carnival is shut down. I left for work in the dark, wet gray of the morning. And when I went home, it was after midnight. It was as if I'd just missed…well, everything. I could see the remnants of other people's fun—the cigarette butts, the empty wine bottles piled up in trash cans outside the cafés, the matchbooks with phone numbers scribbled on them that had been cast away—but by the time I arrived on the scene, the party had moved on.
At work, I was scared, confused, lost, lonely, desperate to prove myself—feelings that were only intensified by the rude bustle and gray demeanor of my new city. My mother and I became very close during my first two months at La Tour d'Argent. She would call me every day and encourage me to stick with it. "You can do it. You're good. You're strong." She wanted to motivate me and although I didn't always believe her words, the sound of her voice comforted me.
I missed the mountains and sun of Andorra, so I bought framed posters of nature scenes to hang all over my studio apartment. They didn't help much. But I had chosen my path, so each morning, before the sun rose, I made my way through the back door and up the stairs to the dark, smelly locker room at the top of five flights of stairs.
How does a chef make twenty cooks work in perfect synchronicity in a small, hot room, without sacrificing quality or speed? Every chef must find his way, but the historical kitchen brigade system is built on a universal truth: fear is a great motivator. At La Tour d'Argent, Jean, the sous-chef, did the intimidating so that Chef Bouchet did not have to. Bouchet spoke to Jean and Jean spoke to you. Jean was a terror, but everyone endured his outbursts and the way he beat us on the shoulders because he had such a good heart.
Though he didn't want to betray his soft side, Jean always knew exactly when to help you, and when to leave you alone. Because he saw Maurice and Chef Bouchet protecting me, he decided it was his job to help me build up the layers of toughness that are essential in the kitchen. Every time Jean looked at me, it was with a mixture of pity and professional consternation, like, What the fuck are we going to do with this scrawny little kid?
In the morning to say hello, he would start by whomping me across the back. "Eric Ripert! Badada! What new atrocity will you commit today?" He would hit me on the shoulder with all his strength whenever he walked by. I had to lock my knees in order to stay upright. Every night before I crawled into bed, I could see where bruises were turning from black and blue to yellow, and where new bruises were about to begin. Today this would be deemed unacceptable but back then it was not considered abuse, just part of life in the kitchen.
When Jean received the day's merchandise, the screaming began in earnest. The walk-in was on the lower level and he would shout, "Ripert! Move your ass! Go get your fish!" God forbid you put your mise en place in the wrong place in the walk-in. He would knock it over and then drag you down the stairs to clean it up.
The thing is that I liked Jean, and I knew he liked me too. He saw his job as twofold—to teach me the basics and make me less thin-skinned. He knew that both were essential to my survival in the kitchen. Any mistake I'd make, he'd say, "Ripert, you fucked it up. Tonight: garde!" Whack. Or "Lunch: garde!" Slap. It seemed like Jean used any excuse to trap me. "Do you know how to make a beurre d'échalote? Garde! Garde! Garde!"
Garde was when you had to stay after service to cook for the restaurant's owner, Claude Terrail, who ate around midnight, after everyone was gone. (He lived on the second floor, so the restaurant was truly his home.)
It was my responsibility to prepare Jean's mise en place as he cooked Monsieur Terrail's meal, usually a soup and salad. The soup was always freshly made, even if M. Terrail didn't always eat it. One evening a few months into my time at La Tour, he requested poussin farci with truffle and foie gras. If he requested an entrée, we usually sent out only half a fish or chicken. M. Terrail was known for having a small appetite and more often than not, we threw out the rest of the expensive dish. Once his entrée had been sent out, Jean left and I was stuck waiting for the boss to finish. The first dozen times I did garde, he never asked for the other half of his meal. It went right into the garbage. So one night, he had poussin. We would always send him one half of the poussin and the second half would be kept in the kitchen. That night, I was so tired and hungry and pissed off that I just grabbed it and ate the second half of the baby chicken.
Of course, that had to be the night when he requested the second half of his meal. It was nearly one A.M.; I was exhausted and hungry and, I was confident, soon to be jobless. I remember staring at the crispness of Monsieur's suit, wondering how the signature violet in his buttonhole was still fresh so late at night. After the captain came to the kitchen and asked me for the other half of his meal, there was a moment of silence as he took in the fact that there was truffle sauce dripping from the side of my mouth. I nearly threw up. The ensuing scandal almost cost me my job.
In those early days at the restaurant, I often made the kind of mistakes that I can imagine firing someone for today. Once when we went down to staff meal, I left twenty-four ducks in the oven. After they were burned to a crisp, they were just tinder for a huge gas fire. The kitchen filled with black smoke as the ducks burned and we quickly brandished fire extinguishers to put out the flames. Now at Le Bernardin, when a young chef makes what seems like a thoughtless mistake, I think of my younger self and remember, "I did things like that," and try to respond with compassion, with a tenderness toward the young cook I once was.
Jean whacked me at will, but he also regaled me with stories of his days as a young cook, when it wasn't uncommon to be beaten with cast-iron pans. "It was so violent then," he would say, as he shuddered, thinking about the chefs who would give you a black eye just for breaking a delicate beurre blanc. "It's so relaxed now!" he would say, visibly exhaling, as if the daily meal services were as pleasantly paced as a spin on a merry-go-round. I nodded as if I understood, but I couldn't imagine being any more scared or frantic than I already was. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 28 | All those nights I did garde, I didn't realize that what I was being given was a private opportunity to watch Jean cook. From my first day at La Tour until my last, Jean was always giving me the punishment of garde, garde, garde. I was so confident that he did it to screw with me that I didn't realize he was actually mentoring me.
Each garde came with a lesson, and although I didn't at first see it for the gift that it was, my brain greedily absorbed the information. Jean would say, "Let me tell you the story of the Belon oyster…." And then he would proceed to give me a master's education in the belon: how it is one of the rarest oysters in the world, found only on the Riec-sur-Belon, a tiny sliver of culinary heaven in Brittany, located between the Aven and Belon rivers. He explained that the Belon oyster has a distinctly nutty taste, a result of the mingling of freshwater and salt water in that river. Then he would instruct me to taste, and to learn. It was the kind of leisurely lesson that could never happen in service, when plates are flying out the door at breakneck speed and there's hardly time to think or breathe, much less talk.
One night, I spent an hour sweating shallots while Jean watched, tasted, and then threw out my efforts.
"Again, Ripert! It's just a fucking shallot, are you an imbecile?"
I learned that every stage of cooking a shallot produces a different result.
"Taste it," Jean said. "It's too sweet. So what do you do?"
"Try again?"
"During service, you don't have the time, you have to fix it. Add a little lemon juice or jus from the vegetable stock." Then he handed me another shallot. "Try it again."
I peeled another shallot, chopped it, then put a little bit of butter in the pan. When the butter was nearly popping, I sautéed the shallot and quickly removed it from the pot.
When it cooled just a moment, Jean tasted it and made a face.
"You taste it," he said.
I did. It tasted bad but I didn't know what I'd done wrong—and I told him so.
"Should I add lemon juice, Chef?" I asked.
He whacked me on the shoulder.
"It's just a bad shallot. It will add a moldy, putrid taste to the dish. It can't be saved. But you should know that. Let's do it again."
As a seventeen-, eighteen-year-old kid, I didn't see that being assigned to garde was a rare moment of intimacy with the head of the kitchen. "Do you see what I'm doing now?" he'd ask as he stuffed the little bird. "You think it's painful to stay late? You feel that you are punished, and you are. You cannot know this, but when you are a commis, you want to be exposed to the maximum, because after that, you will never have the same exposure again. You should thank me." He was joking, but he was right. In the years to come, I would thank him again and again. Merci, Jean.
I bonded with the other young cooks in the kitchen because we were the suckers they roped in to things like getting dressed up in seventeenth-century clothing, complete with stockings, wigs, and brocade caps, and carrying a model of La Tour d'Argent made out of sugar around the restaurant to celebrate its four-hundredth birthday. The other commis showed me the secrets to setting up Maurice's station: put everything that we would need during the three hours of service close to the stove; make sure there was enough water in the couscoussier at the start of the night, because there was never time to refill it, and if the bottom burned, everything that we steamed in it would have an acrid, smoky flavor; keep the sauces covered and all the tasting spoons, ingredients, vegetables, and trays ready; put the fish on top of the tray and put it in the refrigerator; and so forth. What I hadn't learned in culinary school, and what the more experienced commis explained, was that my most important job was to give Maurice the tools he needed to perform, then stand next to him and help him finish what he'd started or give him whatever instruments he needed as quickly as possible. I was part Formula One pit crew, part surgeon's assistant.
Once service began, things got a little more intense. First I had to listen to what dishes were being yelled out, determine which ones needed to be made by our fish station, then remember them—in order. What needed to be done now, and what needed to be ready to serve in twenty minutes? The big problem was, half the time I didn't understand what the hell they were saying. I couldn't understand the vocabulary of the kitchen—what was that guy yelling over the microphone about threelangotwomardsfivepressedbillstwospudswithlotsofair?
In a busy restaurant kitchen, there are so many ways to get distracted. But Maurice had a gift for creating a bubble around himself: all that got into the bubble was the order that was being fired from the mic; all that survived in the bubble was exactly what he needed to prepare the dish.
Gradually, I learned to be ultrafocused like Maurice, to hear only what was important, organize the information, and stay calm enough to do the work—not easy when you're overwhelmed by a kitchen in action. If he heard "three panachés de poisson," he would say, "Yes, Chef!" and forget about the screaming and just focus on those panachés. Maurice was also a master at staying ahead of the game, thinking about what he'd have to do next and getting me to reset the station to be ready for the next wave of orders. He somehow managed to keep an eye on the other stations as well, perfectly timing things so that his dover sole would be ready at the same time as Table 10's two racks of lamb en persillade. Of all the cooks in the kitchen, Maurice seemed to me the most disciplined, not to mention the most talented. It was almost like he didn't feel the pressure that the rest of us did.
In that kitchen, the highest compliment was silence. You either got screamed at or there was no feedback at all (which was good; it meant there was nothing to yell about). I learned this after two months, when the most incredible thing happened: I cut the carrot brunoise properly and quickly enough for Maurice. It was a complicated knife cut: first you julienne the vegetable, then you turn it a quarter and dice it. Each cube has to be exactly one millimeter all around, and you have to do it fast. There were days when I would brunoise half a dozen carrots, celery, leeks, and turnips. Each time I would take the tray to Maurice and he would say, "These are for shit. But they'll have to do." This was not that day. Instead, he did that rare thing in a kitchen: he praised me.
"Finally, you made it!" he said, slapping me on the shoulder. "It took you a long time, but you see? Whatever you thought was impossible, now you can do it. So you can learn more. You're ready." Notice that he didn't actually say I did a good job. But as I blanched the vegetables in salty boiling water and then dipped them again in ice water to stop the cooking and retain the vibrancy of the color, I knew that I had mastered something small but grand. The more the small things became second nature, the more I would be free, as a chef, to build on the foundations with even more complex combinations of tastes, textures, and colors.
Before long, I realized that each task was a lot like hiking in Andorra. There was only one way to go—up. All of those years of climbing mountains had given me an instinct for the ascent, a sense of how to pace myself, how to structure my approach—not through sprints to the top, but slowly and over time. Once I'd mastered the brunoise, I moved on to making a scrambled egg appetizer with crab on top. From there, I learned how to make a sauce vin blanc, and then a bisque. I remember the bisque was a big deal; Maurice was very proud of that achievement. Each of these dishes may sound very simple, but I spent a few months doing each of them poorly, then doing them acceptably, until I could prepare them with my eyes closed and know, with confidence, that they would be great.
I wanted to be as good as Maurice, so I emulated his every move. By his side, I learned not only focus and discipline, but also technique, speed, cleanliness, how to plate properly and fast, and the fundamentals of fish, of sauce, and of flavor itself. We were always tasting, tasting, tasting before service. He always had the right way to describe things so that I'd understand. As for the knife skills, to this day I can hear him yelling, "Not like that! Look at my hand! You put your fingers like this—that finger should be behind or you're going to cut it off!"
He constantly made fun of me, mimicking everything I said to Jean or Chef Bouchet in my thick accent and knocking my expensive clothes in the locker room. According to him, I would never learn to sharpen my knife properly, even though I did it exactly like everyone else. But Maurice's teasing was becoming more brotherly than humiliating. Whenever another cook made fun of me the same way, Maurice would tell them to fuck off and pick on their own commis, sometimes threatening them physically with his muscular body, built up from a lifetime of sailing and swimming in Brittany. Let's just say the teasing died down—or rather, it took place behind my back. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 29 | It was from Maurice that I first began to learn how foundational sauces were to the fine dining experience. In culinary school, I'd learned how to make a few of what chefs call "the mother sauces": the cold ones, like vinaigrette and mayonnaise, and the hot ones, like béchamel, velouté, and a brown sauce known in professional kitchens around the world as demi-glace. But few cooking schools have the budget to let a bunch of knucklehead would-be cooks experiment with the quality and range of ingredients that you use in a three-star restaurant like La Tour, which meant that I had a long way to go.
"Nappé!" Maurice shouted at me, holding up the spoon with sauce as thin as water running off the back of it. Nappé is a term that every young chef comes to hate, and then eventually to respect. When your sauce is ready, it coats the back of a spoon perfectly—a smooth liquid concoction of balanced flavors. Napper means "to coat" and sauces must have the right consistency in order to properly napper a dish.
I looked down, embarrassed. "I followed the recipe," I muttered. In a professional kitchen you work from memory, and obviously my memory had failed me.
"Forget the recipes!" Maurice growled. "You have to use your instinct when you are making sauces. What do your eyes tell you? What do you taste? Are you watching the clock and timing everything perfectly? That béarnaise sauce needs to be thick, like the consistency of a light mayonnaise. It should not run on the plate. And the color has to be bright, not 'tarnished' because it cooked too long. And you need to have a lift of sweetness—but you also need to have that sourness and richness."
As an eighteen-year-old kid, it seemed like such a tall order for a small pot of sauce: for it to be, all at once, bright and thick, sweet and sour and rich. And yet, as is true for almost anything, the more I practiced what Maurice told me, the better I became.
Sometimes when he had a few moments to spare, Maurice taught me things outside the purview of the fish station. It was from Maurice that I learned how to make a gastrique, a combination of caramelized sugar and a touch of vinegar. When added to a meat sauce, it gives the sauce more shine. A great gastrique can help rebalance the flavors in a sauce and help with the consistency. Maurice explained that a gastrique is a great back-pocket sauce, the kind of thing that separates great chefs from the more workaday hacks.
"Turn the flame down as low as it'll go," Maurice demonstrated. "Then let it reduce by half. Keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn."
I began to prepare a mushroom sauce while Maurice juggled three stocks: a crayfish stock, a fish stock, and a lobster stock for the famous lobster bisque.
I had cleaned and trimmed the mushrooms early in the morning, before Maurice came in. Then I heated the sauté pan with a mixture of canola oil and a generous chunk of butter. When the pan was hot, I cooked the mushrooms with a mixture of minced shallots, garlic, and thyme for just a few minutes.
Once the mushrooms were tender, I added a bay leaf and deglazed the pan with white wine. I reduced the white wine by half, then added some fumet, a concentrated, aromatic fish stock. I raised the heat, bringing the pan to a simmer, then reduced the liquid again. I had not known before Maurice's tutelage how much of cooking was chemistry, the use of heat to reduce and transform textures and flavors. I added the mushrooms to the sauce, which certainly looked thick enough, and let it sit in the hopes that it might thicken up just a little bit more.
A few minutes later, when Maurice stuck his spoon in the mushroom sauce, he held it up before he tasted it. The sauce perfectly coated the back of the spoon. Then he tasted it.
"Not bad, Ripert," he said. "But remember, in a sauce, you want to be able to taste all of the ingredients; one taste should never dominate. I am tasting more garlic than anything, you used too much."
I was crushed. "Should I do it again?"
Maurice shook his head. "Nah, I'm probably the only one who will notice."
At home, on my days off, I practiced making sauces. Even though I was in the fish station, at home I practiced more universal tasks, trying to learn the craft. Beef kidneys, for example, were not as expensive as ribeye, but required a great deal of technique to bring forth the flavors and make them delicious.
Upping my knife skills was important, but at the heart of it all was physical training. I needed to teach my hands to move so quickly that my brain did not have to tax itself in the execution of every chop and dice. Learning sauces gave me something more vital and more elusive: I began to develop, in the very smallest of ways, the instinct of a chef.
It seemed like it took forever, but every couple of weeks, I took a little leap in the kitchen. I mastered one cut, then got better at another. I learned the sauces of the fish station at La Tour and one by one, I was able to execute them with vibrancy and depth. The more that I was able to accomplish my tasks with precision, the more of a help I was to Maurice during service. Soon, whatever he needed, I was there to give it to him. Most of the time, we didn't even have to talk. And that's when he started to have respect for me; that's when he really started treating me like a little brother.
Maurice began to invite me out to have drinks with him and his friends after work. He found the fact that I was never able to score with a girl in a club endlessly entertaining. "You were slow dancing, you were both drunk…and nothing? Ripert! This is simply against the laws of physics! Do I have to teach you how to have sex too?" Maurice had a serious girlfriend, but most of the guys in the kitchen picked up girls at clubs or went to hookers in rue St. Denis, so the conversations were pretty raw—and nothing I could contribute to. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 30 | But then things got tougher on their own. About six months into my stay at La Tour, Maurice came to tell me that he'd been hired by Joël Robuchon to work at Jamin.
"Robuchon?" I gasped. "No shit!" All of the gossip in Paris was about the young chef, who had overseen a staff of eighty when he was just twenty-one. "How'd you do that?"
"Anything to get away from you," he said. "Finally, I'll be able to get my job done without having to answer stupid questions from a guy who can't even get laid in Paris."
I couldn't believe I was losing my protector in the kitchen, my big brother at the stove. But Robuchon…he deserved it.
After Maurice left, the guys who had been afraid of him came after me, but at that point I didn't care. I was too focused. And too busy: as soon as Jean saw that you were comfortable in one station, he moved you to the next, where you basically started at zero.
I was quickly moved to entremets, which is preparing all of the vegetables and garnishes for the meat station. "Oh, God! I know nothing again!" I would cry when I went home. But then I'd work hard and figure it out. And as soon as I began to feel good about myself, they moved me again. Next it was garde manger, where I made all of the salads and cold appetizers—like truffle-studded duck terrine with toasted brioche or lobster terrines—as well as portioned the fish and passed it to the fish station.
After I'd been at La Tour d'Argent for eight months they tried to put me on the station that fried the pommes soufflés, but I refused. The translucent puffed orbs that accompanied the duck dishes were delicious and impressive, but incredibly hard to make. You were peeling, washing, and cutting potatoes all day long, and they often burst in the oil, splattering and burning you. To me, that station was the Siberia of the kitchen. There was nothing for me to learn. At that point, Jean and I had grown close enough that I wasn't afraid to speak my mind. So when I saw that he had put it on my schedule for the following week, I told him half-jokingly, "If you put me in that station, I'm quitting on the spot."
The crazy thing is that Jean listened. By then, I had imposed myself upon the kitchen through sheer resilience and hard work. No one could accuse me of being the spoiled kid with the nice leather jacket. Now I was the guy who could cut off a piece of my finger, bandage it, and finish the day.
So the next station was pastry. I didn't last long: I was kicked off after I ate twenty-five strawberry tartlets and I don't know how many chocolates made for that night's petits-fours. After pastry came duck. Duck was the restaurant's specialty, whether it was served with green peppercorn or peach sauce, cooked au sang, flattened à la presse, or whatever they were doing. For four months, I was seasoning, roasting, and then spending hours breaking down about eighty ducks a day. I cooked so many that for years I had nightmares about those canards. Sometimes I was cooking and I burned all the ducks. Other times, I was being attacked by vicious killer canards. It makes me shudder to think of it, the amount of my dream time that was—and sometimes still is—taken over by nightmares about ducks.
I moved on to back sauce, where I learned more sauces and also made the staff meal every day, which required putting together menus of Escoffier classics that Jean had selected from the book, with appetizer, main course, and, twice a week, dessert. It was like cooking for my hotel school exam all over again. For my first dinner, I sautéed about a hundred trout for the entire staff, not just for the kitchen; I was cooking two or three trout in a pan and I had six pans in front of me. When you cook fish with the skins, the pan has to be very hot. I was in such a rush, I started with cold pans and then the worst happened—the skins stuck to the pan. I knew much better than to make such a simple mistake but I was already in the weeds. In my anxiety, I panicked. I just scraped the broken trout off the stove and instead of stopping to correct my mistake, I kept going, ruining pan after pan of trout.
I tried to cover my mistake by hastily arranging the broken pieces of trout on the torpedo-shaped platters. Jean was short and the platters sat on a shelf of warming trays above my stove. When he walked by, I thought—I hoped, I prayed—maybe he won't notice.
But he did notice and what he did was jump up and slam the trays off of the shelf, sending them tumbling onto the floor on the other side. The whole kitchen stopped because of the commotion. Now the embarrassment that I felt at ruining the trout was compounded by the fact that the whole kitchen was privy to my humiliation. Jean glared at me and said, "I hope you have enough money to buy everyone sandwiches at the bakery." Then he stormed out.
Somehow I thought that because the trout was for a staff meal, he would let me get away with serving broken pieces of fish that had burned and stuck to the pan. But I learned that staff meal is not an assignment to be taken lightly: if you cannot cook well for yourself, how can you be trusted to cook well for the restaurant's clientele? More simply put, when all those trays came tumbling down, I got the message loud and clear: you don't give shitty food to the staff. And you have to learn your craft.
I was probably just nervous about that night. I'd finally met a beautiful girl and managed to ask her out. The younger guys from the restaurant would take me to the club La Palace, which was like a dating supermarket, to try to get me to meet someone. On my way to the bar I saw a gorgeous girl with long, dark hair. She looked at me and smiled, then started walking toward me. The next thing I knew, I was on the dance floor with this incredible beauty licking my ear. I felt like the chef at Le Sardinal when he turned on the salamander that I'd just hosed off. I could only imagine how she'd be in bed. We arranged to meet that Friday at the Trocadero at 7:30. I couldn't believe it: a date! Because she was traveling through France, it was a onetime deal. Guaranteed, the cooks told me back at work.
And then the pastry chef announced that he'd gotten a table for four of us at Jamin on Friday. Robuchon! No one could get a reservation—not even with Maurice there. There was a three-month waiting list to try the restaurant that all of Paris was talking about. I was like, "Oh, man. Sorry. Can't do it. I have a date with that girl, remember? I can't just leave her standing at the Trocadero. I can't…"
"You have until five o'clock Friday to decide, Ripert," said the pastry chef. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 31 | In that hushed little dining room in the 16th arrondissement, I discovered just how finely detailed a dish can be. If I thought the food at La Tour d'Argent was three stars, Robuchon was on another planet. He served dishes that no one had seen before. A ravioli, the wrapper so thin it was practically translucent, was filled with langoustine and nappéd with foie gras sauce—a startling pairing at the time. We had a miniature crown of rice with rabbit, the rim of the plate painstakingly decorated with alternating dots of truffle, some so small we couldn't imagine how they'd gotten on the plate in time to be served. (The rumors that his cooks worked eighteen hours a day must have been true, I thought.) It was revolutionary compared to what I'd been learning.
I had dined at two-and three-stars like the Ritz and Taillevent with a few of the cooks (the owner of Taillevent was generous and so amused to see a table of pale teenagers in baggy suits that he paid for our meal when he found out where we worked) and had been blown away by the food and service. When I dined at fine restaurants, I always appreciated the luxury, but I also admired the craftsmanship that went into creating the experience: the hand-painted plates, the hand-blown crystal, the true art of service. But Jamin was something else. This was genius. I now knew what direction I wanted my cooking to go in. Now I just had to get there. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 32 | During my year and a half at La Tour d'Argent, I was taught what a real kitchen is; I learned it in my bones. The brigade system is brutal, but it works. Without it there would only be chaos. Jean was tough but smart: he made us jump in to help anyone who was behind on his station, which meant that all of our skills stayed sharp and well-rounded. When I arrived, I had no idea how hard working in a kitchen would be. Psychologically, it was incredibly difficult: you're not supposed to cry, you're not supposed to say nice things, you can't wince when someone hits you. When I look back on it today, I think: Wow, I am what I am because of that exposure to all those stations and all those shitty jobs (though by the end, cleaning langoustines was actually fun—not that I let on). Because I made so many mistakes and burned so many things, I will always know what not to do. If a cook today tells me he ruined his hollandaise, I can tell him at exactly what step he went wrong, because I've ruined it in every possible way.
I thought I was pretty tough for a nineteen-year-old. And a good cook, too. I was ready for the next move. When Chef Bouchet heard that I was looking to leave, he called me into his office.
"I hear you've been looking for a job," he said. "You must understand one thing: I am the one who decides when you leave. Not you. And when you're ready, I'll send you to Robuchon."
I was sure he was bullshitting in order to keep me there a little longer. But just a few months later, he called me into another closed-door meeting. "Ripert," he said, "Robuchon is looking for a good cook."
"And you're sending me?" I asked, half-joking, half overwhelmed with pride.
Little did I know I was being sent straight to hell.
In 1983, all of Paris was obsessed with Joël Robuchon. The thirty-eight-year-old chef was so famous, he was known simply as J. R. He had received the award for Meilleur Ouvrier de France when he was thirty-one, and then had gone out on his own to open Jamin when he was thirty-six. The restaurant earned one Michelin star just three months after opening, and a second star came a year later. The acquisition of even a single star can make the reputation of a restaurant. For a young chef to receive two stars in such short order was the equivalent of a young actor getting an Oscar for his second film. By the time I arrived at Jamin, Robuchon was more than a chef; he was becoming a legend.
For some reason, I wasn't nervous during the interview, which Chef Bouchet had arranged. I was more curious to meet this phenomenon and be in his kitchen, which didn't seem nearly as stressful as everyone made it out to be. We sat in his cramped, humble office at the end of the rectangular white-tiled kitchen.
As the staff prepared that afternoon's service, the room was as quiet as a museum gallery. I wondered if it was just made up, all the rumors about how intense it was to work at Jamin.
As he talked, I was struck by how gentle and modest Robuchon seemed. The brutality with which he was said to run his kitchen must have been an exaggeration. He was clearly driven, but he also seemed to live very much in his head. You had to talk to him for only a few minutes to see that he had an intuitive sense of the ingredients and a gift for innovation.
"Chef Bouchet tells me that you've come a long way in his kitchen," he said. I nodded, trying to disguise my happiness that Bouchet would say such a thing. "Do you think you still have something to learn?"
Was he kidding? For all I had learned at La Tour, there was so much I did not know. "I've developed speed and knife skills," I told him. "Now I need to tackle precision."
Robuchon seemed pleased with my answer. "Oh, I think you're in the right place."
I nodded again. I knew that I was in the right place.
He stood, smiling broadly, and shook my hand. "Can you start at the end of the month?"
As I walked out of the office, feeling both triumphant and nervous, I heard a familiar voice. "Oh, mon dieu!" It was Maurice, standing over a pot, simmering fish bones for stock. The pan was not as big as the stockpots I'd seen in other restaurants. This, I would later learn, was by design. Robuchon purposefully did not keep large pots on hand because he wanted to make sure that we made everything fresh. Pots came in two sizes at Jamin: small and medium. Even the cold storage area wasn't big, because he didn't want us to store much. "I thought I'd gotten rid of you. Are you following me, Ripert?"
Though they never lifted their heads, the cooks who worked shoulder to shoulder around him seemed to come to attention when he spoke. I remember thinking, So he's the boss here too, even though he's still just the chef poissonier?
I grinned back at him. "I'll see you in a few weeks, Maurice. You'd better be ready."
Maurice shook his head knowingly. "Kid, you have no idea." |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 33 | Early on a Monday morning in December, just a few days after leaving La Tour d'Argent with the blessing of Jean and Bouchet (and a drunken farewell with the cooks), I was ready to start my new life. At six A.M. sharp, I spoke my name into the intercom behind a modern apartment building in the upscale 16th arrondissement. As if in a James Bond film, the heavy metal garage door slowly lifted and I stepped inside, going from one level of darkness to the next. It would be a full eighteen hours before I stepped out onto the street again.
My fellow cooks welcomed me into the locker room. They were pale and skinny like myself, and most were not much older than my nineteen years. I'd heard that most of them had already cooked in incredible places like La Maison Troisgros, a three-Michelin-star restaurant run by a legendary French family in Roanne. Several of the guys had trained with Alain Chapel, one of the fathers of nouvelle cuisine who was internationally known for his gateau de foies blond, a delicate and near-impossible-to-re-create symphony of butter, heavy cream, and foie de volaille.
Even at the high end, Parisian kitchens tend to be small, making a métro car at rush hour look roomy. But even by those standards, the kitchen at Jamin was tiny. The station for garde manger, where I was starting, was behind the coffee machine and next to the dishwasher for the glasses. Even before service began, it was already loud, with hot waves of vapor bursting into the air as cooks helped themselves to espressos and wineglasses were given a second cleaning. Somehow, I was wedged into that tiny nook, along with an apprentice and the chef de partie. My responsibility in garde manger was to produce the salads and cold appetizers. As steam billowed all around me, I wondered how I would create dishes that were still cold when I sent them to the pass. It will be okay, I told myself. The kitchen seemed pretty relaxed, with much less screaming than I was used to. And besides, Robuchon was being so nice.
"He's like that for a couple of days," a cook whispered to me during my first staff meal. "But watch out: it'll change, you'll see."
I didn't believe him. Every restaurant kitchen has someone on staff who sees it as his job to convince you that the sky is falling. He's just that guy, I thought. I was sure that Robuchon was a quiet, humble genius. Even now, it's hard for me to believe that I was once that naïve.
By the middle of service, I was a little spooked by how quiet and focused the kitchen was. I almost missed the microphone at La Tour and the bellow of Jean swearing at us.
During a brief lull on my service, I saw that the fish station was in the weeds. Since I'd been cross-trained at La Tour by Jean and instructed to jump in and help those in need, I went over to Maurice and helped him at his station. Then I hopped back to mine. I could tell that Robuchon was impressed. He nodded at me and smiled, like I'd exceeded his expectations. But I hadn't done it to show off; it was just what I'd been taught.
Later, the sous-chef, Pierre Gosse, came over and leaned on my counter. "Congratulations," he said, his mouth tight. "Today you really scored some points with Chef. He apparently liked what you did."
One morning Robuchon showed me how to make a dish he'd "just thought up": assiette belle de mer au homard, a cold lobster salad. It was so complicated, I got dizzy as he went through it: The lobster has to be cooked just before service, he explained, because refrigeration killed the flavor of shellfish. The bouillon to cook the lobster calls for chopped carrot, onion, celery, a fennel bouquet garni, orange peel, star anise, and black pepper. You add a splash of sherry vinegar, but you have to be careful not to add it too soon or the acids in the vinegar will prevent the vegetables from cooking properly. Once the lobster has been cooked, you discard the bouillon.
The claws are cooked separately from the tail, for four minutes exactly. Then the tail is wrapped in plastic film and speared on a metal skewer—a little trick Robuchon had devised that kept the tails from curling up and allowed them to cook more evenly.
While the seafood rests, you prepare the dressing, taking care to whisk it constantly. The dressing calls for mustard, sherry vinegar, ground pepper, peanut oil, and truffle juice. Stir in each element one at a time, then put the dressing aside. With a mini–melon baller, make balls of tomato, apple, and avocado, reserving the latter two in a bowl of lemon juice to prevent oxidation.
Then you have to decorate the plate. For the sauce decoration, you combine mayonnaise and tomato compote. For the cream sauce, you mix mayonnaise-infused mussel stock, crème fraîche, wine vinegar, and a drizzle of lemon juice. Beating the mayonnaise, stir in one ingredient after another: vinegar, crème fraîche, and lemon juice. Then reserve the sauce in the fridge.
Nothing was tossed in a Robuchon salad; everything was arranged as if in a still life. When it comes time to plate the dish, first you artfully brush the plate with the cream sauce. Then you arrange the pieces of lobster into a Y shape on top of the sauce, mimicking the shape of a whole lobster and its claws. Dip the small balls of tomato, apple, and avocado into the vinaigrette, and carefully arrange them around the lobster, alternating pieces of avocado, tomato, and apple. Sprinkle the lobster with chopped truffle, thinly sliced chives, and a few leaves of chervil.
Now you are ready for the dots. Dotting the plates with hundreds and hundreds of edible dots could drive even the most detail-oriented cook to the brink of insanity. The dots are a blend of delicately balanced sauces. The sauces were difficult enough to cook, but then to use them to decorate the plate with precision, battling the heat of the kitchen and the pressure of time, was, each day, a fresh slice of hell. Once the dots are finished, you complete the dish with a final turn of the pepper mill. Wipe the edges. One dish is ready to serve.
The hollandaise I made on my first day at La Tour suddenly seemed simple.
If you were to take out a pen and a piece of paper right now and try to make a circle of ninety perfect, evenly spaced dots—even if you are a good artist, even if you take your time—I could look at the paper and tell you where Robuchon would find fault. Imagine trying to do those dots with a sauce made of mayonnaise and tomato compote. The sauce is cold and thick when you start, but if you work too long, it warms up and thins. Sometimes, as I spent hours painting red dots around a plate, I couldn't tell if Robuchon was a genius or a madman. The answer, of course, was both.
Even the simplest dishes, such as a lobster salad, had as many as twenty steps. You could write the recipe down when you learned it, but during service, there was no time to refer back to notes. When Robuchon demonstrated a dish, you had to give him your fullest attention. Watch with your eyes. Listen to what he said. Visualize your hands moving the way his did. Eventually, after making a dish a hundred times, you got it.
Then it was my turn to duplicate the meal he had demonstrated. He pointed to the balls of tomato that I was trying to mimic. "I want the balls to be perfectly round," he said. "Perfect, perfect, perfect." Then he walked away. End of instruction.
That first week, he came over several times a day to correct my salad.
"Eric, don't do it like that," he'd say, taking the spoon from my hand. "You have to redo it like this."
If I did not rise to the occasion immediately, Robuchon would send support my way, often in the form of Pierre Gosse, whom I quickly learned to dread.
"Pierre, Eric didn't do a good job on that one," he'd say, holding out one of my salads from the elevated platform where he stood, overlooking the chefs at their various stoves. "Go over there and show him how to do it." Pierre was quicker than we were and his plating more precise, but on a bad night—when Robuchon was in a mood and felt like we were all against him—even Pierre's version would be deemed lacking.
Incredulous, I asked myself, How is it possible that the sous-chef of the most talented chef in Paris couldn't execute his boss's vision? He had to have been a good cook. He'd worked with Robuchon at Concorde-Lafayette and Nikko. Perhaps he started out strong and somewhere, somehow, he fell off.
Looking around the kitchen, it suddenly clicked: everyone was so quiet because they were scared. There was no screaming, no plate-throwing, no bruising claps on the shoulder like I was accustomed to. The fear of not meeting Robuchon's demands was all it took to terrorize everyone into submission. Multiply that by the fierce desire we all had to cook to his standards and it was no wonder everyone was so tense. Almost immediately, I felt that pressure descend on me. It was like a guillotine had appeared out of nowhere, perfectly positioned above my head, waiting. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 34 | Within a few weeks, I was promoted to demi chef de partie (a step between commis and chef de partie) on garde manger, which meant that I was now responsible for all of the cold dishes: three salads and five first courses. I had an apprentice and a commis to help me, but even so, it was physically impossible to produce what was needed for twenty diners in the allotted time because each plate required so much attention to detail and precision.
Even Robuchon had to admit that sometimes what he asked us to do bordered on impossible. Once he came up with the idea to do red pepper lobster mousse with a gazpacho vinaigrette. We tried that dish for days but in the end, none of us could make it to satisfaction: the texture was hard to manipulate, and the combination with the lobster, while flavorful, was inconsistent. For a restaurant dish to succeed, it cannot be a one-time circus act. In a restaurant kitchen, you've got to be able to fire the cannon twenty times a night, five nights a week. Eventually Robuchon gave up and changed the lobster mousse to a tomato mousse, a dish that made it to the menu.
And then there were times when I failed simply because of inexperience: though I'd been trained well at La Tour, there was still much I didn't know. One evening during service, the chef poissonier asked me to open two dozen littleneck clams for him. A simple enough task, but I'd rarely done it before, and I was very clumsy. I was not a trained fish chef. I was still on garde manger: cold appetizers and salads. So I lined them up on the shelf and waited for them to open. When a clam opened a little, I shoved my oyster knife in and shucked it. When the chef poissonier returned, I handed him three clams.
"Where are the rest?" he asked.
I pointed to the shelf. "There, I'm waiting for them to open." |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 35 | After a year and a half at La Tour, I had finally mastered the connection between thought and gesture—the ability to think, I'm going to put this dot of sauce right here, and to do it well. But Robuchon demanded a whole new level of precision. Each plate was not only delicious, it was also a work of art, and it seemed to require some mysterious combination of magic and science to complete a dish and have it arrive at the diner's table looking the way it had just seconds before.
I had thought I was a strong cook, but at Jamin, I began to believe that I wasn't talented enough or seasoned enough to deliver Robuchon's vision. Once I sent my dish to the pass, I would shrink inside myself as I waited to hear his voice saying, "It's bad. Do it over."
If it was good, he said nothing. But during those long moments when you didn't know, when he stood, staring at your plate—and he inspected every dish—the not knowing made seconds feel like hours. If the dish was okay, he sighed heavily, as if, even then, he was being forced to compromise some element of his artistic vision. Then he would clean the rim, even if the plate was spotless. Then the plate would go.
But if, say, the baby shrimp in a salad didn't have the perfect petal-like rosace shape, each one curved like the petal of an intricately designed bloom, or if he noticed a speck of chive on a truffle, then he would scream, "Ripert, I'm not happy with you! This is not the way to do it!" He needed to let the whole kitchen know that you had not only erred, you had failed him and the reputation he had worked so hard to create.
Not even the smallest error escaped his attention, and I always feared that I was next on the chopping block. Only Maurice managed (mostly) to escape his ire—Maurice and the dishwashers. Robuchon was extremely gracious to the African men who worked as the dishwashers at Jamin. They never bore the brunt of his criticism, even when their errors were egregious. What concerned him was the customer, and as he could not cook forty-five meals a night by himself, it was us—the cooks whom he trusted to execute his vision flawlessly, night after night—who felt the full force of his frustration. What happened away from the customer's plate and palate was of far less concern to him.
This leniency sometimes went too far: once Robuchon was giving a tour of the restaurant to a visiting Japanese dignitary between the lunch and dinner services. On that particular day, the dishwashers had decided to use their downtime to do their laundry. They hung a line from one end of the tiny room to another and after carefully cleaning their delicates, hung their socks and underwear to dry. Robuchon entered the kitchen, his face full of pride—until he looked up. Disbelieving, he ran up to the line of laundry, then slowly backed away from it. He tried to speak, but it took him a few moments to find the words. "What? What is this?" he sputtered. Then he turned to Pierre Gosse and whispered, "Please, take that down." He turned his guests around and took them out of the kitchen.
And yet, that afternoon, neither of the dishwashers lost his job. He seemed to understand that they simply didn't get it. He could, and often would, lose his mind over an ill-placed dot on a plate or a badly shaped tomato ball. But I had to give it to Robuchon. His focus was fully, and totally, on the food. Dirty laundry, even in the kitchen, didn't faze him.
At Jamin, every shift was a marathon. Each time that you lined up at the starting block, your fight-or-flight instincts were on fire and you wanted to say enough, I quit, I can't. Most of the time, when you saw someone break down on the line, the truth was that for them, it was over before the shift had even begun. If your sauces didn't come out right or you were behind preparing your mise or you overcooked an expensive ingredient, then you were screwed before the first diner even sat down and opened the menu.
I was on the train before sunrise every morning, rehearsing my morning prep in my mind. Each day I had only one goal: to execute my plates without Robuchon noticing me. As long as I didn't make some mistake that he caught, as long as my plate wasn't the one held at the pass for extra scrutiny—or worse, sent back to be done again—then it would be a good day. There were a hundred things to do before Robuchon came rolling into the restaurant at nine A.M. The earlier I arrived, the better chance I had of not screwing most of them up. When the subway stopped at Trocadero, the station nearest to Jamin, it was still dark. The only time I saw sunlight before work was at the height of summer, during the three or four weeks when my work schedule actually coincided with daylight. As I walked to the restaurant, I mentally went over the recipes that Robuchon had put on the menu for the season.
Robuchon did not believe in specials. He didn't believe in weekly menus. He believed that frequent menu changes meant that you sacrificed perfection for variety. If we were always cooking new dishes, he worried that we wouldn't have the luxury of executing them on the technical levels he demanded. So his menu was conceived by the season, and each recipe had more steps than any other I had ever encountered. It didn't help that the dishes were unlike anything that was served in other Paris restaurants. Every dish was a complicated pairing of ingredients that weren't usually served together: spiced sea bass with a verjus sauce; oyster medley with bay scallops and caviar. In culinary school, I had rolled my eyes at the humble dishes we were taught to make. Now I longed for something easy so that for once, I could pull it off without thinking. It was all so hard, there was no chance I would ever do it perfectly. No one who worked for Robuchon expected to shine. All you could do was keep your head down and try to survive.
Early in the morning I would at times almost forget to be afraid. But from the moment I heard the garage door open at nine, followed by his car driving in, the fear came rushing at me, a runaway car with no brakes. He walked into the kitchen noiselessly, like a ghost, but I always knew when he had entered the room. I didn't have to see him to know he was near. We could all sense him, the fear silently rippling through us.
The first thing he said when he strolled in was, "Come on, guys! You have to clean the kitchen!" If he was in a good mood, he would tap you on the shoulder and say hello. If not, he greeted you with a glare and chilling silence. You know how laughter can be contagious in a group? Anxiety was like that at Jamin, and I had caught it from Gosse and the other cooks.
The only reprieve in all the pressure was that Jamin, unlike most restaurants, was closed on Saturdays and Sundays. The catch was that our team worked double shifts Monday through Friday. We arrived around six, never later than seven A.M., and didn't leave until well after midnight. When Eric Gestel, whom we called Coco, came to work at Jamin, we all remembered his first day because he worked hard and was impressively capable from the beginning. Then around four o'clock, he took off his apron and asked, "When does the second team come in?" Maurice and I burst out laughing.
Maurice said, "You take a half-hour break and then you are the second team." Every day was sixteen to eighteen hours long, sometimes longer.
The grueling hours meant that we took shortcuts where we could. Everyone had his secret mise. On Monday we were required to start from zero, but that was absolutely impossible. So Friday night, we'd hide things just before we left for the weekend. I would tuck stupid, meaningless mise en place under the lettuces, like a mayonnaise or a vinaigrette base. The guy at the sauce station would stuff the chickens with things for his mise. Everyone except Maurice: only he was able to deliver things as quickly as Robuchon wanted them. The rest of us had to find tricks in order to be as precise as was demanded.
But we did the best that we could because we understood the pressures that fell on him. Robuchon had the challenge of running a tiny restaurant that couldn't possibly have made money: there were twenty-five cooks for forty covers (versus twenty cooks for a hundred twenty covers at La Tour d'Argent), and he bought the most expensive produce in Paris. We didn't want to waste or ruin any of the ingredients. We understood that he wanted everything done à la minute to preserve their essence.
In my mind, the only way I could give the chef what he wanted was to be "creative." It started with the rabbit terrine. He demanded that it be made fresh every morning and ready to serve by noon, but when made to his specifications, it would take at least six hours and eat up 75 percent of my attention—and even then there was no guarantee it would be up to his standards. To make the terrine I had to braise the rabbit and vegetables separately, then cut them into a perfect brunoise. The gelée had to be made using calves' feet to set it—never gelatin—and it couldn't be too firm. (All of these components were prepared in different stations, so I was always in someone's way.) The terrine needed to be built stage by stage, layer by layer, so that it would set while remaining perfectly soft, and the layers would almost float, one on top of another, sticking together instead of sinking. The challenge was to create volume and space in the architecture of the dish while balancing the elements of heat, the organic nature of the ingredients, in other words, how they might separate and change in just a few minutes or even moments of being left out of the fridge. We had to be good, but we also had to be fast. So there was that too—the constant, unending need for speed in a restaurant kitchen.
Often, the terrine wouldn't take in the short time allowed. It was so fragile that I had to slice it with an electric knife, rescuing the rubbery cubes of shiitake that popped out and painstakingly trying to fit them back in like a surgeon. I used dill to frame the terrine, almost like a painting. Once the terrine was done, you spooned gazpacho sauce around the base so that it created a perfect red circle around the dish. The trouble with the gazpacho was that tomatoes start to release water after a few minutes, breaking with the olive oil in the sauce, so again, you had to move quickly. Finally, I had to do those damn green dots. When the dish was executed properly, it looked like a perfect mosaic—for just a few minutes. Robuchon would take his time looking at it on the pass, my life flashing before me.
"Ripert! It's too hard."
"Ripert! It's too soft!"
"Ripert! Your vegetables are no good."
"Ripert!"
And that was only one of seven equally complicated dishes on my station. If he decided at lunchtime that I needed to make a new terrine, I wouldn't have been able to do it even if I had every cook in the kitchen helping out. So I decided there was only one way I was going to survive. I would make two or three at a time and hide them in my refrigerator, moving them to another fridge when he came to inspect my mise en place. This way I could just cut him a slice from terrine number two and pray that the fresh herbs hadn't turned brown.
"Ah, see? When you want, you can do it," he'd sometimes say.
This did not always work according to plan. "That terrine is no good! I don't want it!" he'd yell when he'd see a fleck of tarragon the same color as the gelée. "I don't want that terrine. Make it again."
It was one o'clock, and he had no choice but to use the terrine—even if I began a new one right then, it would never be ready for that night's service. Then he would settle for choosing just the right words to destroy me: "You really don't care about quality," he'd say. "I mean, seriously. How can you give me a product like that? What do you think you're trying to do? If you don't care—and clearly you don't—don't work here. Don't come back. Go do the kind of bullshit cooking you like somewhere else."
I knew that Robuchon had only become Robuchon by meting out the same punishing standards for himself. Picasso once said, "I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it." I think Robuchon worked the same way. He wasn't merely challenging us with the nearly impossible as a test. Deep down inside, he needed to know just where the line was, how far he could push an ingredient, a technique, a flavor combination. I knew that every criticism he hurled at us, he had hurled at himself a hundred times. He was more than a simple perfectionist; he was a visionary whose goal was nothing less than to change the face of French cooking.
I'd worked at La Tour d'Argent; I knew that Robuchon's terrines and dots were to traditional French cuisine what Picasso's cubist paintings were to a roomful of Rembrandts. Moreover, his business model was one of those complex mathematical problems that only a supercomputer could solve: you take the most expensive ingredients and multiply that by X dishes, then divide that by Y, the infinitesimally small number of tables we served each night, then subtract rent, lightbulbs, linen, and tableware, as well as the salaries of twenty chefs making a living wage. He was famous; he was the toast of the town; but each week when he sat and ran the numbers, he was barely holding on.
And yet for all the compassion and practical understanding I had of who Robuchon was and what he was facing, I was still just nineteen years old. He was my first truly frightening boss. After one month, I was completely terrorized. Even when I could talk myself into letting go of the emotional part of my fear, I would find myself crippled by the mere prospect of trying to match the pace. The amount of work was just too much; even Maurice was struggling to keep up. Sometimes I panicked and asked Gosse to come help in my station, but if Robuchon found fault in one of his dishes, Gosse would simply turn his back on me rather than take responsibility for the slightest mistake.
When I got home at night, I was too tired to brush my teeth. I slept all day Saturday. Sunday I lay in bed with a stomachache, dreading the week ahead while mentally preparing my mise. Monday morning I woke at four to shower and get to work, afraid that I would get there too late to prep in time for lunch.
Sometimes I felt like I didn't understand what Robuchon was asking me to do. The language and techniques were far too advanced. He was very specific about how he wanted, say, the velouté done. Typically a velouté is a light stock thickened with a roux blond. But when the first asparagus of the spring came in, Robuchon decided that he wanted to experiment. I was told to cook the stalks in chicken stock, wring them in a towel to extract all the essence, then mix the liquid with cornstarch to bind it. He wanted that sauce combined with crème fraîche and used as the basis for a new dish. I quickly discovered that the cornstarch mixture broke and became liquid, and there was no way I could save it—not that I had the guts to tell him. The sauce also had to be kept over ice until the last minute, because it turned to water the second it hit room temperature. I tried to come up with something similar to what I thought he wanted without him finding out that it wasn't his recipe, until one day the sauce was so thin, the green dots started to dissolve and run into the cream sauce.
I asked a waiter to do me a favor and just send it out. "Please! Don't show it to him! Just take it into the dining room!" I begged.
But the captain saw it and sent it back. He made it clear: he wasn't going to go down for me.
"I don't trust you, Ripert!" I heard the shout from the pass. "You're a liar! How could you lie to me? You already lie about your terrines."
The week before, he'd come over and barked, "Open your fridge!" I couldn't refuse. He pulled out three terrines and slammed them on the counter.
"What in the world are these doing here, Ripert? Are you a magician?"
"Well, it's to feed the staff, Chef! Because we don't want to throw them away." The terrines were actually looking much better, but Robuchon didn't care.
He never had to so much as lift a finger to hurt us: with the strength of his eyes and his attitude, being subject to Robuchon's anger felt like being crucified. "You're lying," he said, his eyes cutting into me. "Now I know why you've been serving this shit for so long. It's because you're cheating. You want to kill my restaurant!"
How had I expected him not to know? This is the man who would look at a scoop of apple on my lobster salad and declare it too white. He could tell at a glance that, in an attempt to get ahead for my service, I'd cut my apples early and dipped them in lemon juice to keep them from browning. How could I have expected him not to catch a premade terrine?
There was no way I could apologize in front of the kitchen. Apologies were never accepted, and they never fixed things. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 36 | In Robuchon's kitchen, everything was done just so. You didn't just grab a few mushrooms from the refrigerator and carry them to your station in your apron. Instead, you placed them on a tray and walked to your station carefully, because those mushrooms were sacred. He had an appreciation for quality that bordered on obsession. He believed that flawless raw ingredients were as valuable as the rarest diamonds. He may have ordered only four limes, but they all had to be the exact same perfect size and color. If only one of them was good, the driver for the produce company had to return to Rungis, the major food hall outside of Paris, and come back with ones that matched. If only two of those three were right that time, he would demand a third delivery, and sometimes a fourth.
At La Tour d'Argent, we had beautiful products, but I'd never seen anything like this. Then again, I had never seen a restaurant send a guy back to Rungis four times because the tarragon was not right (first the leaves were too big, then they were too small, and then they were too dark around the edges).
The purveyors must have spent hours going through crates and crates of mushrooms in order to be able to present a basket of ones that were all the same size. Robuchon would order three pounds of carrots and demand that each one be a perfect one-by-six-inch cylinder. He inspected the nails of every chicken to make sure it had been freshly killed, the color of every veal kidney to make sure it wasn't too rosy, the length of the rougets down to the millimeter. But people were so honored to be selling to Jamin (and so afraid to lose the accounts of any of his chefs who'd gone on to cook in big hotels) that they rose to his demands. They respected his encyclopedic knowledge for and love of quality, and it didn't hurt that he would pay any price for the best.
In season, the truffle company Pebeyre from Cahors sent a kilo of black truffles the size of golf balls every single day. In spring, an old woman would show up with a case of morels, and Robuchon would treat her like the queen. He made her feel he was so in love with her mushrooms that it was an honor for him to touch them, a privilege for him to be able to serve them in his restaurant. Every ingredient was a treasure in that kitchen: our job, he reminded us, was to take what was humble and transform it into something noble.
I felt it too. So when he would catch me trying to use Friday's vegetables on Monday, he would yell, "You don't appreciate the product!" because he knew it cut to my heart. I wanted to rise to Robuchon's standards, but taking these kinds of shortcuts was the only way I could stay ahead.
And then, fifteen minutes later, he would start up again: "Ripert! You see? For you it doesn't matter, right? It could be shit."
He was funny that way. Once you'd upset him, he'd keep coming back at you. An hour later, three days…"Why would you do that to a truffle, Ripert? I cannot understand." My wounds were always fresh, because Robuchon never gave anyone time to recover.
I lived for the moments in which he said nothing. Once he'd wiped the rim of one of my plates clean and sent it to the dining room, my stress seemed to melt away. But the alleviation was temporary. Everything at that restaurant had to be perfect, from the service to the food. The final test was when the client sent back the plate. If anything remained, we were all doomed. The waiters knew it. Even the regulars knew it—they made sure to eat every bite.
One day a lobster salad plate caught his eye.
"Ripert, come here! Look at your salad!" I looked at the plate in horror: one piece of lobster and a single dot of apple remained.
"Oui, Chef."
"Ah, are you happy with that? Huh? You sabotaged my dish, Ripert! Is this what you wanted?"
"No, Chef." I went back to my station and stayed silent, praying for him to stop.
Five minutes later: "Ripert! How could you do that? How could you send me this lobster salad like that?"
A half hour later: "I cannot believe—I cannot believe the shit you send me! I cannot believe we are serving that to our clients. Where did you learn that shit?"
Even two hours later: "Where did you learn to serve that shit, Ripert? Where did you learn?"
Incredibly, some stations were even more stressful than mine. The poor guy on entremets could never make the perfect mashed potatoes, which probably existed only in Robuchon's mind. One day they would be too starchy, another day too buttery; one day too thin, another day too thick. Too sweet. Too salty. You could tell that the potatoes were becoming an unhealthy obsession for that cook.
There's a reason that line cooks are often so young: the young are more trainable but, more important, they also have the energy to put into the job. Our task was to produce quality and precision for sixteen, eighteen hours a day. There was no Red Bull back then and in Paris, we didn't have Diet Coke, so we powered ourselves up with coffee. I was drinking ten espressos a day. The espresso machine at Jamin was in the back, near my station, and I pumped myself full of double espressos, heavy on the sugar. Like all the other young cooks in the kitchen, I was completely wired. Whatever it took to get the job done.
Because, really, we lived to please Robuchon. His happiness with the food was far more important than the client's: he was a true artist, but to run a team of cooks requires patience as well as vision. We were all challenged ultimately by the demands of Robuchon, but mastering that level of craftsmanship takes years of practice and we didn't have that; we were too young.
We all knew what was driving him. It wasn't anything as base as money: he was determined to get a third star. And his obsession became ours.
Everyone dealt with the pressure differently. Some guys shook all the time. Some went downstairs and cried in the stairwell. I saw a few guys punch the walls. Some guys suffered crippling anxiety attacks.
The only way that we could survive that environment of intensity and rigor was to have a sense of humor. Cooks rarely had time for lunch, but in the late afternoon, when Robuchon went home to have dinner with his family, we had a window to grab coffee at a café. There we made relentless fun of Robuchon. We were obsessed with his status as a Freemason and speculated about all the conspiracy theories. He became this all-knowing, all-seeing being. Was it true that he got so-and-so the job at that big hotel because he's a Mason too? Did he have microphones recording us in the kitchen?
We also vented about some of the petty grievances that drove us nuts. Every day we were required to make dinner for his French poodle, as well as a salad course for his family's dinner, which fell to me, since I was on salads. And every day he called to complain about something: The lettuce had been gritty. His dog didn't finish his dinner because the meat was too tough. What kind of cooks were we that we couldn't even make a meal that a dog would enjoy?
When it came to dealing with the pressure, my chosen coping mechanism was to feign indifference, a technique I had honed during the years of living with my stepfather. I used my body language as a form of passive rebellion. Even when Chef was dressing me down in front of everyone—telling me that I wasn't passionate enough, that I didn't care about the quality, just my little shortcuts—I got as close to him as I could and looked him in the eye, standing straight and proud. No matter how panicked I got, my resolve never wavered. Unlike with Hugo, I couldn't use words to win. But I could draw upon my experience of pretending to be unharmed by abuse—flexible, resilient, and determined to succeed.
I reminded myself of La Fontaine's fable about the oak and the reed. The mighty oak makes fun of the reed for being so scrawny, but the reed doesn't say anything. When a big storm comes and knocks down the oak, the reed bends in the wind and grows back stronger. "See?" he tells the tree. "Now you're broken and I'm still here. I bounce back every time."
Within the team, I had to make believe that I wasn't stressed out. My nickname became the Tourist: I was always the last to arrive in the morning (just fifteen minutes after everyone else, but it didn't go unnoticed) and I would calmly, deliberately make my coffee and toast in a way intended to telegraph that I wasn't in the terror game like them. I was extremely careful never to cut or burn my hands, keeping them impeccable, and to appear as clean and creaseless and relaxed as possible at all times. I hoped that my calm appearance, in addition to the food that I was slowly learning to master, dot by dot, would see me through the service.
I was willing to endure anything just to be able to learn from him. I wasn't there for the money, though he paid us much more fairly than other restaurants. I was there for the passion of cooking and because Robuchon was magnetic: he literally attracted talent. What we were making was so exceptional, so out-there compared to what every other restaurant was doing in terms of presentation and unique flavor combinations, that while I worked I was always thinking, This is unbelievable. The quality of the ingredients and the harmony that he created between them was unlike anything I'd ever seen, not to mention the revolutionary visual impact.
I still remember the first time that Robuchon taught me how to make a lobster gelée, which we served carefully layered, caviar first, then the lobster gelée, then cauliflower cream, in a tall Japanese bowl lined with brilliant dots of chlorophyll that I had extracted through a complex process that began with puréeing herbs in the Robocoupe. When I first tasted it, I literally scratched my head and said, "I have never seen or tasted a dish that good in my life." Diners would ask if he had a machine to create such meticulous dots and get them to stay in place just inside the rim of the bowl—they too had never seen anything like it. Neither had anyone in that kitchen. What Joël Robuchon created was terra incognita. It would be years before I'd say the words out loud, but Robuchon—flawed and exacting as he was—was my hero.
Though they were hell to execute, the world was taking notice of the masterpieces Robuchon was thinking up. One afternoon, I noticed he was in an unusually good mood. It was as if the slate of our collective transgressions had been wiped clean and he'd met us each for the first time, and was excited to have us join the team. He patted each of us on the shoulder as we arrived and changed into our kitchen whites. He beamed as he asked us to gather for an important announcement.
"Today I am proud to say that thanks to all of your work, Jamin has just received its third Michelin star," he said, and our band of twenty broke into cheers. "This is the first time in the guide's history that a restaurant has achieved this in just three years."
I don't know who popped the first bottle of champagne, but soon corks were firing like cannons. We were part of culinary history. We had helped Robuchon achieve the near-impossible, becoming one of twenty-two restaurants in France, the restaurant capital of the world, to bear the honor. And in such a short time! At thirty-eight, he was the youngest chef ever to win three stars.
"I would like to reward all of you guys for making it happen. I will have to find a way to celebrate the three stars in style," he said. A few weekends later, he took us all to Burgundy for lunch at a restaurant of one of his protégés. Christophe Cussac had held Maurice's position on the fish station. Now, at his restaurant, L'Abbaye Saint Michel in Tonnerre, he had a Michelin star of his own. We had a fantastic day, eating great food, drinking Chablis, and appreciating the generosity of a man who couldn't possibly have been making that much money yet.
That was the honeymoon. When we returned on Monday, the pressure to keep the three stars turned out to be even more taxing than the pressure to get them. Robuchon was a bit more touchy, but then again, his vision of perfection had never been attainable. He pushed us to our limits to get us to achieve it. We became superhuman in that kitchen, constantly surpassing ourselves. When he told us that he wanted every single pea peeled to reveal the tiny germ inside, we thought it was madness, but we did it. If you were to peel a fresh pea right now, you would see that inside the shell, there is a very tiny sprout attached to every pea. Robuchon wanted us to take off that tiny sprout, because he believed it would add just a hint of bitterness to the dish. When the restaurant's sudden popularity spurred him to open private salons upstairs to accommodate twenty additional guests, we thought it would compromise the quality. But we did it.
Despite the deceptions about the terrine, I believed that I had integrity and dedication, which I hoped that Robuchon could detect. Through relentless hard work and hundreds of thousands of dots over the course of nearly a year, I had developed another level of craftsmanship and precision. (I knew this only because fewer of my dishes were sent back from the pass, and Maurice, now sous-chef, thank God, was sent over to shake his head at me less and less.) Even though I wanted nothing more than to become a great chef like Robuchon, I was terrified of the next step: I would be moved to the next station and have to learn everything all over. And again. And again. I didn't think I could handle it. Not there, at least. The stress had gotten under my skin. I wanted a normal life—not that I knew what that was. But I didn't want to spend my waking hours in fear. I didn't want all of my dreams to involve dots.
My love life was nonexistent. After service, when I should have been trying to meet women, I was often just sitting in the bar, memorizing some new recipe that Robuchon had thrown my way, working out how to get a better taste for my sauces, wondering how I could plate faster with fewer errors. I could easily spend an hour at the bar, nursing a warm beer, going over the evening's service in my head, wondering where I had gone wrong and how I could make it better. That far-off, glazed look in my eyes, unsurprisingly, did not make me popular with women. If one of my buddies from the restaurant punched me in the shoulder and said, "Hey, Ripert, that girl with the curly hair is looking at you," I could make a move: say hello, buy her a drink, ask her a few questions that might give her the illusion that I was obsessing over something other than how not to get my ass handed to me on a platter at work the next day. But to seal the deal? To wow her, woo her, convince her that she had nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking me to bed that night? That was beyond me. I was too tired, too distracted, too young to be good at that game. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 37 | One weekend, a few months after I started work at Jamin, I went home to visit my mother and ran into Madame Amparo.
"Eric, you've grown up!" she said, proudly.
I opened my jacket to show her the necklace she had given me. "I still wear your cross, and I live in a city surrounded by water. You were right."
She nodded. "You will always be happiest surrounded by water. It is where your spirit sails, where you will be most free."
"Madame Amparo, if you ever come to Paris," I promised, "I will make you a meal that you will never forget." I smiled as I imagined Madame Amparo at Jamin and the predictions she might have for my mercurial boss.
If I ever doubted Madame Amparo's ability, all doubt evaporated as she seemed to read my mind.
"Your boss, he's very tough," Madame Amparo said. "When we look up at the night sky, stars appear to be silver and we imagine them to be cool to the touch. But stars shine bright because they are on fire. The closer you get, the more likely you are to get burned."
I nodded and thought of Robuchon, of his genius and his temper.
"But this is the thing, my child," Madame Amparo continued. "You are headed for the same night sky. When it's your turn to burn brightly, remember where you have been. Be careful not to harm all of those in your orbit."
One spring afternoon, almost a year into my work with Robuchon, I received the letter that every twenty-year-old Frenchman dreads: I was being called for military service. Usually guys tried to get out of it, or managed to get sent somewhere easy or beautiful to serve out their term. I'd been able to delay it for a bit because of my job, but as I read the letter, I realized that I was thrilled to have an excuse to leave. Well, that's not entirely true: I wasn't excited to have my career put on hold just so I could go clown around with guns for a year. But still, it was a break.
When Robuchon came in the next morning, I knocked on his office door and asked if I could sit down. He put down a stack of bills and tried to smile.
"Of course, Eric. What is it? You want to move stations? You think you're ready?"
"No, Chef. I'm sorry, but I've been called to do my military service. I'm giving notice."
His smile disappeared. I could see him calculating. "That's ridiculous. I'll arrange for you to cook at the Elysée. I know the chef there. It will be so easy, cooking for Mitterrand! That way you can stay with us for a little longer." My smile disappeared. If I cooked for the president, I would owe Robuchon. He could force me to come back when my service was finished.
"Actually, I've already been helped by a friend with a good connection," I said as politely as possible. I was hoping to end up in the south of France where the weather would be nice and I'd be only a three-hour drive to Andorra.
"Well, then. You'll finish up here through June?"
"Of course, Chef."
"Congratulations, Eric. I wish you the best."
And with that, I was free. The army was going to be a vacation. When I was finished, I would find another job. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 38 | I went home and waited to be called for my military service. I was told it would happen in a week or two, but I got lucky. It was four whole months before I was called. I spent my time home in Andorra, climbing mountains during the day and dancing all night in the local clubs. Sometimes I'd drive a few hours to Barcelona or fly to Ibiza and party there, since the music was better and the chances were higher that one of many dark-haired beauties would talk to me. I was almost twenty, and less shy. I wanted to get all the partying out of my system before going to live in yet another dormitory with a bunch of guys.
I was stationed with the 31st Regiment in Castel Sarrasin, a pretty little riverfront village near Toulouse. Established in 961, Castel Sarrasin has a long military history, from being the site of twelfth-century skirmishes against the British to the Crusades and the Hundred Years' War. The base was from the 1800s, but my recently built dormitory reminded me of hotel school.
The point of our service seemed to be more about teaching us to be young men who could follow orders than actually crafting us into soldiers who could fight in a war. We spent two months on drills that had no discernible point. We moved piles of rocks from one side of the road to the other, then back again. Then we put the rocks in our backpacks and marched miles in one direction, turned around, and returned.
I tried to point out the stupidity of our exercises, but no one listened. They'd drop us in a forest and say, "You see those guys behind the trees over there? That's the enemy. Attaque!"
"Wait a minute," I'd interrupt. "They can see me!"
"That's right. You have to find a solution."
"But there's not a solution!" Finally I'd give in. "You want me to attack? Okay. On attaque!" I started running toward them in the open, my rock-filled pack thumping on my shoulder blades as I tried to hold the gun out in front of me. Inevitably, those of us who weren't blown up by pretend mines were mowed down by the pretend enemy's guns.
The tasks felt so meaningless that it was hard for me to respect the men giving the orders, or try to learn from what was being asked of us. They just wanted us to obey, not to think. Okay, but why did we have to walk together like geese? One-two, one-two, with half the men unable to keep time while the officers screamed at us to stay synchronized. Sure, it showed discipline and organization, but would it really help us win a war?
I liked to provoke the career officers, who were a few years older than us. When I was assigned to guard the munitions at night, I'd wear forbidden civilian clothes, like my mountain-climbing coat from Andorra, under my uniform to stay warm. When we had to go on long marches, I put on my Ray-Bans, blasted David Bowie on my Walkman, and put Ricard in my canteen. (It was so cheap in duty-free Andorra that I brought back six bottles at a time and sold them, when I wasn't offering it around during aperitif hour.)
We spent the first few months on basic training, les classics. It seemed like we never stopped cleaning guns, old rifles that were impossible to get clean enough to pass the white-glove test. Whenever an officer held up a greasy, accusing finger and told me that mine wasn't clean, I threw up my grimy hands and said, "What do you want me to tell you? First of all, these guns are from World War II. Second, you have to oil the chamber, so of course your glove is always going to come away with black smudges. Can you tell me how to be a good soldier and a white-glove soldier at the same time, sir?"
The entire base specialized in génie, which meant mines, explosives, bridges, and roads. I immediately recognized that the training we were receiving in spotting imaginary mines was a futile undertaking. "Mines are hidden, random, they defy logic," I told my officer. "In a real combat situation, you'd get killed almost instantly." |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 39 | I was part of the last generation of men in France who served a mandatory military service. At the time, I think the government believed that because you received a free college or vocational education and got free healthcare, mandatory military service was a way of paying back. In retrospect, I'm happy I did it. I have the utmost respect for veterans. My paternal grandfather, Antonin, served in both world wars. My mother's father, Fernand, was imprisoned in Morocco and escaped the Germans. But I think as a young kid who served in France during a time of peace, I didn't really get it.
After the two months of weapons training, because of my résumé as a chef, I was assigned to the kitchen of the mess. I was happy to go to the kitchen because the food was pretty good, and I was looking forward to contributing to that.
On my first day cooking in the mess, my boss announced, "Today we will make calamari and sauce Americaine. Ripert, you can take care of it."
Sauce Americaine is like a lobster bisque, very technical. You have to crush the heads of the lobster, for one. But I was up for it, even excited about it.
Then he handed me a box of frozen calamari. I nodded. It wasn't ideal, but I'd make it work. This was the military, not Jamin. I understood that not all of the ingredients I'd be cooking with would be fresh.
"Where are the lobster heads to make the sauce?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Make a béchamel, then add ketchup and brandy."
I was in shock. Meanwhile, the other cooks in the mess, who had been tasked with making spaghetti, had managed the unthinkable: they burned the spaghetti while it was cooking in the boiling water. Because they did not stir the spaghetti, or time it, the pasta stuck to the bottom of the kettle and burned. I had never seen—or smelled—anything like it in my life.
I was so horrified that I decided to go and talk to the colonel. He agreed to see me. One of the things I liked about him from the start was that he was a cool customer, slow to anger, very elegant. I was nineteen years old and I had a mouth on me, so I gave it to him straight. I told him, "I cannot cook shit food the likes of which I have seen today. I'm going to be depressed and get sick. I cannot perform the mess hall duty."
The colonel smiled at me.
I didn't realize how ridiculous I must have sounded, but I was young and I had just come from Robuchon, a place where we worshipped every mushroom, every fava bean, every potato. I believed with all my heart that the appalling behavior passing for cooking that I had witnessed in the mess hall kitchen was a sacrilege.
"You don't want to be in the mess hall. Should I send you to the commandos?" He was being sarcastic, but it was lost on me.
"Sir, I can't do the commandos." Those were the guys who were being prepped to fight in the hot spots of the day, Chad and Lebanon. This, needless to say, terrified me. "Look at me!" I said, pointing at my skinny frame. "Do I look like a warrior? A top-secret killer?"
He threw up his hands. "Do you want to be my waiter?"
It was perfect. I waited on him and his guests at lunch and sometimes at dinner in the dining hall above the canteen, which happened to be next to a poultry market. I gave them three-star service—if there had been food to carve tableside or crèpes to flambé, I would have done it happily. Because I worked with a high-ranking officer, I was given privileges that my fellow soldiers envied, like the ability to leave the base after work and get most weekends off. Unfortunately, I still had to go through the program.
Most guys had never experienced discipline like this. For me, I felt like I was on vacation, just with shorter hair. (And even that I didn't mind. What, they were going to break my spirit by shaving my head? Did that actually work?) Because I'd been a part of a professional kitchen, I understood the hierarchy and discipline of the brigade—and why it's necessary. You work at the level to which you are assigned, performing set tasks within a designated space. You do not think for yourself; you take orders only from the person in charge of your station, and ultimately from the sous-chef, that revered and feared individual who runs the kitchen under the orders of the chef and is the only person allowed to talk during service. Failure to follow orders could result in injury or, worse, a ruined meal. It was just like the military, from which the system was taken. Yet, I have to say that I never felt fully at home during my training.
Back in Andorra, Jacques, who had been Special Forces, seemed to understand my plight completely. "It makes sense that you are bored with your training," he said. "Your battlefield is in the kitchen. The soldiers who know your struggle best are back in Paris, at Jamin." |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 40 | Waiters and chefs were given special privileges, like being allowed to go out every few nights. I took full advantage of my privileges. My friends and I went to the nightclubs in Toulouse as often as we could to meet college girls, or hung out at Le Sunbeam Café or Le Tout Va Bien restaurant in nearby Moissac. There was a little club along the canal there called Nirvana that played cool music—New Wave, disco, and reggae—where I also spent a lot of time. Soldiers weren't allowed there, but with my silk Smalto shirt, ultraslim Levi's cuffed at the ankle, and Sebago leather loafers, no one thought I was from the barracks.
One night, a girl came up to me and said, "I know who you are. You're Eric Ripert." I thought, Who is this girl? She's not even flirting with me.
"My name is Patricia. I have to introduce you to your sister. You look like twins."
"My sister's in Andorra with my mother," I said, turning to walk away.
"No, your father's daughter. We're friends; she lives nearby."
I was shocked. My half sister was six months old when my father died. When Francine, my stepmother, disappeared, she'd taken my sister with her, and I'd never heard from them since.
"Do you want to meet her?" Patricia asked.
I did.
The next weekend, I went to the Café de Commerce, a little place in Moissac owned by a guy we all knew and liked named Fissou, to meet Stéphanie. It was like looking at the female version of myself. No, more than that: it was like looking into my father's eyes again. For the first few minutes, we were both too moved to speak. I felt like the shocked eleven-year-old crying in my room in Andorra. Eventually, we started talking. "I grew up around here," she told me. When Francine ran after my father's death, she and her daughter ended up in Moissac, where Francine married another bank director. There was some real estate that hadn't been settled—apartments my father owned around St. Tropez—so my grandfather had gotten fed up and hired a private detective to track down Francine and get what was owed to me. But I had been protected from all of that, so I never knew that this was where she lived, and I would never have guessed that one day I would live in a barracks a few kilometers away.
Stéphanie had no memory of our father, so I told her about his gardening and his jazz, his vinegar making and his trumpet playing, how much fun he was to be around, and how sad I was to have lost him so young. I couldn't resist asking if her mother was still a terrible cook. Marika was, in my mind, so closely paired with Hugo that it was difficult to feel close to her. Stéphanie, who was my father's daughter, who looked so much like me, was like the sister I never had.
Patricia was thrilled to have been able to connect us, and it turned out that she had another girl she wanted me to meet, this one a colleague at the gift shop where they worked across from the Café de Commerce.
Bernadette was petite and curvy. She was what we call chatain, with hair that was a beautiful ombre color between brown and blond. Even though she had a certain maturity and sophistication, I could tell right away that she wasn't used to going out to clubs or having twenty-year-olds flirt with her. Maybe that was because she was only eighteen, but she intrigued me much more than the knowing, made-up girls who were outgoing enough to make the first move. When a slow dance came on, for once I wasn't feeling shy. I took a chance and kissed her. She kissed me back with such passion that I called her the next afternoon and the next.
Working at Jamin I felt I could never get it right, but during those early days with Bernadette, I felt I could do no wrong. To her, my opinions were always the worldliest and best thought out. She laughed at my jokes and took my proclamations about life and politics as encyclopedic fact. I was just a few years older than her, but I spoke French and Spanish. I had lived and worked in Paris. She thought I was sophisticated and worldly, and I loved the reflection of myself that she presented.
Before I knew it, I was spending the night at her parents' farmhouse (me in one bedroom, her in the next), and speeding back to the base before I had to serve breakfast. Her parents were conservative, and they pretended not to hear the old farmhouse floorboards creak as I crept into her room at night and back again in the morning.
I liked being around her family. Bernadette's mother, Denise, was an orphan who had been hired as a maid in the home of a rich man. Her boss, Georges, was one of the biggest fruit farmers and landowners in Moissac, an agricultural region famous for its fruit and sunflowers. He treated Denise like family, so when she got married, he sold her one of his neighboring houses at a price she and her husband, a fonctionnaire, could afford. Bernadette and her brother, Jean-Claude, referred to Georges as their uncle. Denise was warm and gracious. Her father liked me too, and he was always telling some sort of tall tale about the elusive game he'd shot and enormous fish he'd caught. I just nodded and went along with the tales as I ate Denise's delicious food, which she made with ingredients from the surrounding fields. Jean-Claude was about five years older than me. He was an attorney and was very strict with his little sister. He wanted Bernadette to study and do well in school and get into a university, even though she wasn't interested. Jean-Claude saw me as the distraction that I was; he was courteous to me, but nothing more.
After Bernadette and I had been dating for a few weeks, her family took me with them next door to have Sunday lunch chez Georges. I remember thinking that his tall stone and brick house wasn't as grand as I expected for someone who owned more than three hundred acres. The door opened right into the kitchen, which was centered around a formidable antique table with elaborately carved legs, at which one of the housekeepers was peeling potatoes for the deep fryer.
I could tell from the smoke coming out of an adjoining house that most of the cooking was being done over there, in the fireplace. When I stepped into the winter kitchen, which was obviously in use all year, my breath caught. On one side was a massive wooden refrigerator from the 1920s. A meat slicer sat on a counter nearby, a silver platter layered with thin slices of sausage and ham balanced on top. But the focal point of the room was the wide, blackened fireplace with an automated spit where chickens were roasting. On the unembellished mantel, between a row of antique jars, wooden crosses, and statues of the Virgin Mary, rested a forgotten juice glass of wine.
Georges smiled as I came in. He tipped off his bowler hat, straightened his raggedy brown cardigan, and grabbed my hand. The connection was immediate.
"This is the great chef from the city?" he said with his strong southern accent. "Come! You must help me carve the birds. I killed them myself! I wish you'd been here to help me pluck them. But look at your hands: they're much too soft for a cook's—or a soldier's."
He was tall and slim, with white hair and mischievous blue eyes, like a little boy's. All the youth and vitality that defined him could be seen in his face: the eyes that were always laughing and the sly, sideways grin when he made a joke, which was often. His voice boomed with that unmistakable Gascony accent with its big R's: every R in eve-R-y wo-Rd was articulated. There was a singsong quality to the rhythm of speech in that area, and when Georges spoke, it sounded like music.
He raised his hands to show me his meaty, gnarled fingers. "You need a little farm life to toughen you up! Next month, come help us pick artichokes. Then you'll know what country life is all about. We farmers might not be smart like you, but we can teach you something."
As we prepared dinner for Georges's guests (a mixture of friends and family from the surrounding town), I sliced up two of the birds while Georges hacked at the others with a battered cleaver. I could tell that he was only pretending to be clumsy; to my eye, he took great pride in the food. The family gathered under the shade of the chestnut tree in the little gravel courtyard outside the cooking house, where we spent the rest of the afternoon eating and drinking, our voices rising and our laughter increasing with each platter that was carried out of the house. Georges proudly told me about the provenance of each antique and where he'd found it. Between courses, he had me kneeling in front of a cabinet in the living room and looking through box after leather box of ebony-handled knives, hefty silver serving spoons, and elaborate salad forks. "Not bad for a farmer, eh?" he asked with a wink.
His lighthearted humor and outgoing southern warmth reminded me of my grandparents in Nice and put me completely at ease. Even from that one meal, I could tell that he knew about good ingredients in a way that would impress even Robuchon. By the time his daughter, Monique, brought out a warm tart made with just-picked apricots, I felt as though I had been adopted. I wanted to spend every Sunday cooking in the fireplace with Georges.
It had been a long time since I had felt so at home with a family. My father would have loved Georges, I was sure of it. My father was not a real paysan; he was a Sunday farmer in his little garden. But his parents had been farmers, and although my father was a sophisticated bank president who loved fast cars and beautiful women, there was a part of him that prized the simple pleasures of life above all else. As I sat at the fireplace with Georges, many of my most beloved memories of my father came rushing back: My father changing from his suit to a T-shirt and khakis and tending to the vegetables in our backyard. My father teaching me how to swim in the ocean and how to gallop a horse at faster and faster clips through the woods. My father grilling kabobs by the beach in St. Tropez. The country fireplace in Gascony and the beach fires my father made were different, but the warmth was the same.
A few weeks before I was set to be discharged, a clerk approached me. "Ripert, you've got a message."
I looked down at the scrap of paper and the familiar phone number. Robuchon.
No way, I thought. This guy is fucking with me. Even with his Masonic superpowers, there was no way Robuchon could have found me in Castel Sarrasin. How did he know?
I called Joël Robuchon from the phone booth on the base.
"Hello, Chef. What a surprise!"
"Hi, Eric, how are you? Did you like your military service?"
He told me about some of the goings-on at the restaurant. He'd undertaken a small renovation and he was looking forward to my seeing it. Then finally he got to the matter at hand. "Listen," he told me, "I need a chef poissonier. Are you interested?"
I was stunned. Whatever I expected Robuchon to say, it wasn't that. "Chef poissonier? But, Chef, I was only on garde manger! I can't make hot sauces yet. Not the complicated—"
"Eric, you can do it. We'll teach you."
"Um, I have to think about it." I could already feel the familiar sense of panic swelling in my chest.
"Of course you can think about it. You have one minute."
I couldn't go back. There was no way. If I had to go back, I would die. Or kill someone. Or at least have a nervous breakdown. And yet…Robuchon didn't call just anyone. This was a huge honor. My terror was joined by pride. Even though I knew I wasn't the best cook in Robuchon's kitchen, he thought I could do it, which must mean that he saw some talent. Besides, I began to reason, the fish station was the most interesting one at Jamin, at least in my opinion and taste as well. I thought what he was doing with fish was so incredible and refined. The sauces and garnishes were so complex and varied, they made my rabbit terrine seem like a roast chicken with a sprig of parsley. Oh, God. I had never done hot sauce at Jamin! Even Maurice could barely make it through service some nights. I would never survive. Come on. Be realistic. Save yourself! Tell him no. You may never work in Paris again, but at least you'll be sane.
If I learned fish and sauce from Robuchon, I would be able to do pretty much anything I wanted after that. Robuchon was impossible, but he was an impossible genius, and I wanted—needed—to learn from the best. What stayed with me, night after exhausting night, was the criticism, but I knew that he would not have called me out if he didn't believe I was capable. The kind and joking voice on the phone did not fool me this time. Life at Jamin would continue to be a living hell, but I would learn—a lot.
"When do I start?" |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 41 | All I could think about was ending things with Bernadette. The relationship was becoming more challenging because Bernadette was young and prone to jealousy, and I was so focused on my career. A plan began to take shape: I would tell her that I was going back to work in Paris, and that she had to stay and finish lycée. I would promise to come back next summer, saying that we'd figure out what to do then. Or better yet: I was being sent to Chad as a secret commando. We must never speak again, for the security of the country….
Her brother had another suggestion: over breakfast a few weeks before the end of my service, he leaned close and whispered, "Bernadette's jealousy is consuming her. The two of you will never work. Just leave. We won't tell her where you've gone." I knew he was right, and I should have accepted his help. But I still liked Bernadette, and there was something about her that I found hard to let go.
Then, right before I finished my military service, I went to a movie in Toulouse. The film was An Officer and a Gentleman. At the end, all of the officers leave their girlfriends behind when they change bases, callously breaking the women's hearts. But not the hero. He blows back into town on a motorcycle because he can't live without the woman he loves. It seems so silly now, but I left the theater inspired. So much so that I developed a serious case of amnesia regarding the dynamic of our relationship. I decided that I wasn't going to leave my girlfriend, making her just another jilted sweetheart in a military base town. Instead, I invited her to come live with me back in Paris. I was twenty-one, Bernadette was nineteen, and we were playing house in an uninsulated, definitely illegal plywood shack that had been rigged together on top of an old apartment building next to the Porte de Versailles. (I told my mother it was a penthouse.) It meant a serious commute to the restaurant, but it was all I could afford. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 42 | 5:55 A.M. The dread returned before I even pressed the intercom button marked JAMIN. Now that I was here, I couldn't fathom why I had ever agreed to come back. Did I really think that, after more than a year away from the line, I could cook fish for Robuchon?
From my first day back at Jamin, I knew that I was doomed. At the restaurant, I recognized quite a few of the faces in the locker room, including Eric LeCerf, my friend from garde manger; Benoît Richard, who'd been the chef on meats when I was there; and of course Maurice, who was now running the kitchen at Jamin.
My stomach tightened when I heard Robuchon's car pull into the garage at nine. Then a few minutes later, an affectionate slap on the back of the head. "Eric! I see you have returned to the fold. Bienvenue! You have much to learn. Philippe Braun here will be teaching you everything you need to know about fish. It's not like garde manger, where you had a week or two of instruction. No. You and Philippe will be working closely together for the next three months. Perhaps by then you will begin to understand. Bonne chance."
And so my education began. Robuchon was determined to offer the diners the best quality and freshest product available. The fish we cooked was so expensive, Robuchon ordered only as much as was needed for the day, and even then it often ran out. The waiters were under strict instructions to make sure that none of it went to diners who might not appreciate it. With a shudder, I remembered a night during my first stint at Jamin. We were down to just six portions of rouget left when a table of five Texans decided to give it a try.
"They're not going to eat it," Robuchon snapped at the captain when he saw their ticket. "Rouget is too fishy for Americans. I don't want them to have it. Tell them to order something else."
A few minutes later, the captain returned, pale and trembling, to apologize. As hard as he'd tried to convince them, the gentleman ordering for the table insisted.
"If they don't eat it, you will see," said Robuchon. We braced ourselves.
Five beautiful plates of rouget went out. Four beautiful plates of rouget returned, barely touched. The captain tried to imitate the Texan's voice as he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Don't worry about it! I'll pay for it." This poor tourist had no idea what the waiter and the kitchen were about to endure.
"You see! I told you, but you didn't understand a word!" he barked at the captain. "Look at this fish! Now what do we do? Do you know how much this fish cost? Do you?" The captain hung his head and practically crawled back to the dining room.
Despite the fact that the client paid for the fish, Robuchon was distraught. He hated not pleasing the client. He hated that the beautiful, expensive pieces of fish were going straight into the garbage. For him, it was a failure coming and going.
"What do we do with the fish?" Robuchon cried every half hour for the rest of the night. "Why don't you ever listen?" he said each time the waiter came in to pick up a plate.
The fish dishes weren't as technically exhausting as the ones I'd labored over on garde manger, but the cooking required a precision that was much more harrowing. And the sauces, well, it would be months before I was allowed to make those on my own.
For the first few weeks, I watched and worked with a mixture of fear and determination as Philippe Braun, the current chef poissonier, did his work. Robuchon respected Philippe because he came from a culinary family. Philippe's uncle owned a famous three-star Michelin restaurant called Au Crocodile in Strasbourg. What I liked about Philippe was that he was very artistic, almost poetic, in his description of the sauces. He would explain that some sauces were very masculine—bold flavors, dense in texture. Other sauces were more feminine—subtle, delicate, refined. For so long, my time with Robuchon had been about executing the boss's vision. But with Philippe, I began to see that you could still have a vision of your own. It was up to each of us to imbue the work with our own meaning and style.
The fish station was, in the most ideal circumstances, manned by three guys. Philippe was in charge. He handled the most delicate elements of the fish station and was the master of the sauces. The sauce is everything. It's hard to learn how to make a sauce—to capture flavors in a liquid and anticipate how they will behave requires a lot of craftsmanship. What will expand? What will fade? It's a process, and it takes a long time before you can play with flavors and really begin to execute the magic of making the sauce. During that year after my military service, Philippe was slowly mentoring me on the art of the sauces.
As his second in command, my job was to cook the fish—under Philippe's supervision—and to prepare the garnishes. Philippe, as the head of the station, plated each dish, but I was there to help him.
Depending on the season and staffing, there was sometimes a third guy under me—a commis who did some of the prep and helped keep the station clean.
I immediately understood why garde manger was considered vacationland compared to being on the line. The fish station worked at a constant disadvantage, since the fish was the last delivery to arrive each morning. We had practically no time to clean and fillet it. Once the orders came in, we almost always had to get help on our station to keep up, which meant that we had even less room in which to work.
Philippe showed me what I would be responsible for making: two sauces with lobster, one with shrimp, another with verjus, and a few other complex sauces, including a fennel sauce, a lobster coral emulsion, bouillons, and more mise en place. Once again, I found myself being pushed to my limits to deliver impossible things. Each of the eight or nine sauces had to be made fresh twice a day, which demanded endless cutting and slicing. I couldn't have kept up if I hadn't prepared some of my mise for dinner while getting ready for lunch, hiding it in the back of my fridge. When it got really busy, I sometimes saved a little bit of the sauce from lunch for dinner. But Robuchon could always tell.
"Is it fresh?" he would ask, reaching for a tasting spoon.
"Yes, Chef. I just did it."
The lids of his eyes drew halfway down as he frowned. "You're a liar. Do it again."
Sometimes my deceptions would have been comical had they not felt so vital. One day I was supposed to be making a saffron sauce for canapés, but Philippe hadn't taught it to me yet. He was downstairs having a cigarette when I heard: "Eric! Fais-moi goûter la sauce du canapé."
Shit, I thought. What am I going to do? I have nothing. Okay. It will take Philippe three minutes to have his smoke…
"Oui, Chef!" I yelled from my corner.
"So, aren't you going to get a pan?" Robuchon asked.
"Oui, oui, Chef!" I grabbed a saucepan and a whisk and started moving the whisk back and forth in the empty pot. Clack-clack-clack! Where the hell was Philippe?
"Alors, is your sauce coming or not?" Chef inquired.
"Chef, one more minute!" Clack-clack-clack.
"That's enough! I want to see your sauce."
Philippe was nowhere to be seen. I didn't have the courage to say that I didn't know how to make the sauce.
"Come here and show me!"
I moved through quicksand, bringing him the shiny-bottomed pot.
"How could you do such a thing?" he said. "Do you know nothing? Has Philippe taught you nothing? Why are you such a liar, Ripert? You with your fake terrines and your ghost sauce?"
It was always like this. He called me Eric when my work was tolerable, but it was Ripert when he was mad. And, man, was he obsessed with the rabbit terrine I had ruined almost three years before. As for the ghost sauce, it was aptly named, because Robuchon would no doubt make sure that story followed me to my grave.
When I sent dishes to the pass, I heard my share of "ça va pas du tout, Ripert. Take it back." After a few months, though, Robuchon began to say nothing when he saw my plates—that golden silence! I thought I might finally be getting the hang of it, until the night I saw one of my entrées return to the kitchen.
My heart fell through the floor. It looked nicely cooked, but the one piece that had been cut away showed the fillet to be raw.
Worse: Robuchon had let it go out to the dining room.
"Who made this fish?" he asked with an eerie calm.
"I did, Chef." He took the plate from me and I thought he was going to smash it over my head. But Robuchon was never violent with us. He rarely even swore.
He threw the fillet into a pan and slammed it on the stove.
"Did you see that? Bravo!" he shouted.
No one in the kitchen was breathing.
"That's excellent. Ex-cel-lent! Did you see? It's raw!" and then he went into his office and slammed the door. I finished cooking the fish and sent it back to the pass, where Maurice was standing there, shaking his head. I couldn't meet his eye.
Two hours later, Robuchon returned to drive the point home again: "Did you see that? It's not good! It's raw!"
An hour later, he came back and screamed it again. "Raw!"
This went on for weeks, an endless loop of disappointment and indignation.
The kitchen was set up so that each station faced Robuchon, who stood on an elevated platform, almost like a conductor stands over an orchestra in the pit of a theater. Each dish had to pass his watchful eye before making it out to the dining room. At my station there was a big work table where I would do the day's prep. It was a stainless steel table and the drawers beneath were refrigerated so I could keep the ingredients nearby and cold. The stove where I cooked each day was actually behind me. Standing with my back to Robuchon did a number on my nerves like you wouldn't believe. From where Robuchon stood, he could watch your every move and you never knew where he was. He could be standing at his perch, like an eagle ready to swoop in for the kill. He could be over in pastry, paying you no mind at all. Or he could be hovering right over your shoulder, about to snap at you for overcooking the expensive loup de mer. Part of the peace of the early morning was that Robuchon was not in the building yet. I could face forward and prepare my mise en place and hope that today was a day where my mistakes were so minor that he focused his ire elsewhere.
The relentless fear and intensity of our environment began to transform us mentally. Once I saw a chef heat his tasting spoon over an open flame and then hold it against his cook's hand to punish him for not doing his job correctly. Some guys would come up behind you and kick you in the ankles. Fear creates fear, and cruelty follows. But Joël never knew; he would never have accepted such atrocities.
Philippe never cowered under the pressure. He was the French chef equivalent of a California surfer dude, always laid back and ready to enjoy the thrill of the ride. Although I didn't see it at the time, Philippe's passion, focus, and Zen-like attitude would have a long-term effect on both my career and life. He loved making sauces. He liked beautiful women. Outside of that sacred dyad, nothing much got under his skin. He was immune to Robuchon's rants largely because he was so good at his job that he gave Robuchon very little material for the cutting remarks that were his main weapons. But even when Robuchon managed to find fault in one of Philippe's dishes, he never collapsed under the criticism. I longed for Robuchon's approval and when I didn't get it, I felt crushed under the weight of his disappointment. Philippe was different. He was confident enough that he could separate the useful part of the critique from the withering abuse that Robuchon heaped on top, then go back and make the dish better.
My time with Philippe was important because he wasn't just teaching me how to cook: he was teaching me how to be. When you're on the line, every shift is a fight to the end. Handling forty covers at Jamin felt like twelve rounds in a boxing ring. Sometimes you knocked it out, sometimes you went down in the third. Either way, you took your blows and you went home at night, bruised and exhausted. It's hard—nearly impossible—to see the big picture when you're a young chef because all the orders coming at you, and all the technical intricacies you must master, they feel like a punishment. But when your time finally comes to be in charge, when you get to call the shots and it's your job to make a kitchen full of young up-and-comers execute plate after plate of flawless dishes, you draw from all of your training. You think of all those who bossed you, trained you, frightened you, impressed you, and you must decide: How will you act?
Philippe planted a seed in me that would take years to fully form: that maybe there was a way to lead without using anger and fear as the primary tools. Maybe I could love the sauces, love the ladies, love my life—the way Philippe did. Maybe there was a way to control the heat so that, like Philippe, I could keep my cool. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 43 | The pressure of working for Robuchon was taking its toll and too often the stress of work followed me home. At least once a week I awoke from a nightmare in which I had screwed up my mise and Robuchon was about to open my fridge. One night, after a particularly rough service, I came home, took one look in the refrigerator and yanked Bernadette out of bed.
"Look at this fridge!" I yelled. "Look at this fucking mess! I want you to fix it right now. How can you be so disorganized? Who treats their lettuces like that? What did you do to my mushrooms?"
She stared at me in frightened disbelief. "You're going crazy!" she said, beginning to cry. "What's happening to you at that place?"
What was happening was that I was losing it. And so were the guys in the kitchen around me. We were buckling under the pressure and the constant barrage of criticism, and we were becoming mean. No matter where I was, I felt like I was constantly under siege.
Bernadette was miserable as well. She wasn't used to living in the city and stayed alone in the apartment all day. The only time she left or spent time with anyone else was on the weekends when we saw Maurice and his girlfriend, or went to the occasional neighborhood bistro. Even if she'd been comfortable enough to go to a great restaurant, we couldn't afford to eat there, since I spent all my money on rent, métro tickets, and groceries. For me, there was no such thing as a sandwich or a bowl of spaghetti on the weekend. When I cooked at home, I shopped for the same quality of ingredients that my mother or Robuchon would buy, and always prepared an appetizer, entrée, and dessert, which meant that our little dinners ended up being much more expensive than dining out. Finally, after a year, we moved to a slightly better place in the 13th arrondissement and Bernadette got a job working at a hotel trade magazine, which helped for a while. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 44 | Before my military service, Robuchon had decided that we were using too much butter, so he posted a book on the pass. We had to sign out for each slice of butter we cut from the giant block that in French is called motte de beurre. Then, I guess because he thought we were spending too much time in the restroom, he put a red bathroom book outside of his office. We were to sign in and out for bathroom breaks. Libération, a Paris newspaper, got wind of the "pee-pee book" and made fun of Robuchon, so the books disappeared.
A few months after I returned from my military service, the bathroom book reappeared. It seemed crazy to me, knowing how hard we all worked, how we needed every second to get the service right, that he might think that we'd waste time in the bathroom. But there it was, a log to keep track of how we spent our time in the loo. You had to write down what time you went into the bathroom and what time you returned to your station. I thought it was bullshit, so I started penciling things like:
Ripert / 8:55 pee-pee /8:57, bring back the key
Ripert / 11:00 am caca / 11:03, bring back the key
It seemed like such a small thing, but I wanted him to know that things had changed since my military service. I wasn't a kid anymore. He never said anything about my insouciant comments, but a few days later, the log disappeared for good.
A year into my second stint at Jamin, Philippe Braun took another job and Robuchon announced that I had been promoted to the saucier for the fish station. It was an honor, but I was paralyzed by the thought of what lay ahead. It was a really tough, physical job, making a series of complex recipes from scratch twice a day. Robuchon was especially demanding of his sauces, and while they relied upon strict technique, which I'd learned at La Tour d'Argent, what made them great could not be taught. You can't truly measure ingredients for a perfect sauce—there's no such thing as an inch of rosemary flavor. It's in your head and in your palate, and the only way to get there is through experience. Consistency and color alone require years and years (and years) to master. I knew that it would be at least a full year before I would start to get the hang of it.
I was promoted to Philippe's position, but things didn't get better or easier. The sauces were hard to master and my instinct for assembling flavor in a delicate liquid form was still developing. In the fish station, you had to be extremely cautious. Fish, by nature, is delicate. Time is of the utmost importance. You can braise a piece of meat for fifteen minutes and it's no tragedy, but that would ruin a piece of fish. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 45 | When I became the head of the fish station, I was struggling so much each day and with each dish that I could never have imagined that fish would eventually become my specialty, my passion. But even then, amid all the stress, there were moments of fascination: I was intrigued by how delicate it was, how refined the sauce and garnish had to be to enhance the quality and flavor of the fish. I grew to love how cautious you had to be with technique in order to cook the fish well, and how essential timing was.
It wasn't that I fell in love with a particular style of cooking, a dish, or an ingredient. But there is a way of working with fish that began to speak to me. Cooking meat brings the soul out of you; when you cook a steak or a stew, you don't have to be so precise. But fish brings elegance out of you. You must be intensely focused, and you have to use all your knowledge to elevate the fish.
The fish station was where Robuchon was more innovative, less tied to classicism. The way Escoffier was cooking meats is much the same way we cook meat today. The way Escoffier was cooking fish? That way of cooking is now totally obsolete. He would cook a piece of salmon for two or three hours. Robuchon and his generation of chefs obliterated the old thinking about fish. We barely cook salmon now; we are very cautious and gentle. That was all new when I was the fish chef at Jamin, and that was exciting.
My assistant in the fish station was a talented young chef named Guillaume Brahimi. We had a good dynamic together. He was smart, a strong line cook, and loyal. Unlike in many other stations, Guillaume and I had each other's back. When Robuchon found our plates lacking and began to berate us, we didn't throw each other under the bus.
Once I began to run the fish station and plating the dishes became my supervisory responsibility, I began to understand that cooking is not about architecture first. It's about the flavor and harmony of the ingredients you put into each dish. Robuchon presented these almost 3-D plates with complex mosaics of color and ingredients and yes, he was pushing the design to the limit. But he was always thinking about the flavor first. The painting was the food and the flavors. The presentation on the plate was the frame.
Every kitchen shapes you, and with Robuchon what I learned was attention to detail, rigor, passion for beauty, precision, and discipline. It was craftsmanship at its finest. There was, at the time, no creativity on my part; I was just duplicating his vision. But in duplicating a dish like the fanned baby red mullet with an olive oil emulsion and tempura-fried celery leaves, I learned through imitation what I could not have learned in any other kitchen in Paris. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 46 | The whole kitchen staff got a reprieve when Robuchon took an extended trip to Japan. Things were so peaceful when he was away—busy and intense, yes, but it was so much easier to focus on making sure my execution was perfect without his intimidating presence. And then suddenly he was back, determined to sashimi our egos down to size.
"You think you guys are champions and that you are the best because you work in a three-star restaurant." He stalked around the kitchen, making sure to lock eyes with each and every one of us. "You all suck! In Japan, the chefs are ten times better than you. They're more humble than you. They are more skilled, more precise, more gifted. Better, better, best! They are better, and they are the best!" It was crushing at the time, but when I traveled to Japan myself years later, I understood. In Japan, the restaurants had the precision and the unerring commitment to excellence he was always aiming for. It was his dream: the Japanese perfection of Western cuisine.
Robuchon was one of the first chefs in France to be influenced, and mesmerized, by Japanese cooking. And it's perhaps in his cuisine that the Asian influence has been felt the greatest. That influence was mostly felt in the fish station. In technique and in presentation, Jamin began to represent a bridge between French culture and Japanese culture. Robuchon was creating that bridge and we were all a part of it.
Though fear and pressure in some ways defined my time at Jamin, there was also a tremendous amount of pride in working there. It took months to get a reservation, and just to say that you worked with Robuchon was like saying you played guitar for a world-famous rock band: people didn't necessarily know you, but they knew you were big-time. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 47 | By the time I returned to Jamin, I was twenty-two, and I knew that I was receiving the best possible training for the levels of cooking I dreamed of doing. And yet, each Sunday my stomach would start churning with anxiety. I would feel too sick to eat. I didn't sleep Sunday nights because my brain was flooded with fear about everything that might go wrong. Starting a new station from zero was taking its toll. Each night, when I thought I was going to die (or lose my mind), I would begin counting the hours until I could leave: "Okay, it's seven now. Even if he keeps us here until one, that's only six hours, max! I can do it."
I knew I still wanted to get to the top of the mountain, but I couldn't see it anymore. I put my head down and staggered ahead. Through repetition and determination to be great (or at least better than good), I began to understand the sauces I was preparing. I started to allow myself to feel my way through them, not just assemble them by rote. I knew when a sauce I had made was delicious—perfectly balanced and deeply flavored. And if I was lucky, Robuchon would choose that moment to demand a taste. Benoît Richard knew that my sauces had finally gotten there, but he wanted Robuchon to think that he constantly had to help me out. He wanted the credit for my hard work. One of my worst moments at Jamin was when, after hearing the chef call for my foie gras truffle sauce, Benoît ran over, grabbed my pan when Chef's back was turned, and brought it to the pass himself.
"Ah, Benoît. Ça c'est de la sauce," he said, his expression temporarily slackened with pleasure. "C'est délicieux." In that kitchen, it was the highest praise anyone could ever hope for. And I never got it.
When Robuchon was upset with me, he'd say, "You'll never be a saucier." It was like a knife in the heart. Never mind the irrationality of it—I was the saucier on the fish station!—I was desperate for him to recognize my progress. "You have it or you don't," he would tell me. "Too bad you don't."
Day after day, my life in that kitchen was like a psychological experiment to determine the precise combination of pressure, pain, and fear it takes to make someone lose it completely. We weren't afraid of physical violence. It was purely psychological—a heavy torrent of bad weather that never let up, making you doubt whether clear skies existed at all. Robuchon wasn't a pan thrower like so many chefs of his generation, nor did he curse like them. Instead, we were terrified of disappointing him, of hitting the switch that caused him to spend hours going over our failures again and again, striking our weak spots until we were raw with shame.
Some chefs survived by taking credit for others' work. I strove to be one of the most laid-back in the group, but even I could be extremely selfish about my comfort in that kitchen. I began to look out only for myself: if my commis made a mistake, well, he was on his own. We were all hard on our commis because we were always afraid, and cruelty is one of fear's most common by-products. It would take me a very long time to unlearn those methods of surviving under pressure.
Some chefs simply couldn't handle it. There was a kid who came to Jamin from Alain Chapel, one of the most revered restaurants in France at the time. He never made it past his training on garde manger. Already skinny to begin with, he had no time to eat and he was too stressed out to sleep when he went home. On his second Friday, he fainted and fell down the stairs. By the following Wednesday, he was gone.
One of the guys we worked with, who had struggled with depression, tried to commit suicide. I wasn't on the edge myself, but I knew that something bad was happening to me at Jamin. I was, increasingly, beaten down and frustrated, miserable and angry. But Robuchon was king and I could not imagine leaving him. And yet, I didn't know how it would ever get better if I stayed.
Bernadette's constant jealousy only compounded the stress I felt at my job. I would come home from a seventeen-hour day at the restaurant and she would accuse me of having spent the evening in some girl's bed. I began to forget what it was like when we first got together—how lucky I'd felt to have such a beautiful girl be so head over heels for a guy like me.
Most nights when I came home, I was too tired to defend myself. Bernadette would take my silence as a confession, getting more and more worked up until she would start throwing at me whatever she could get her hands on: glasses, plates, books, bottles. It was exhausting, and I didn't have the time or the ability to give her the attention and reassurances she needed.
When Bernadette and I finally moved into a better apartment, Maurice and his wife came to help us with the heavy lifting. To this day, Maurice still talks about carrying my sofa up five flights of stairs because my new apartment had no elevator! But what I remember most from that time was how in love Maurice and his wife were. How she always seemed to encourage him and believe in him and how every decision, from which jobs they would take to how they would spend the holidays, was undertaken as if they were equal members of a team. Maurice's wife, Brigitte, was beautiful and the attraction between them was clear, but what impressed me most was the deep sense of trust and friendship. I wanted to have that in my own relationship, and I began to doubt that I ever could with Bernadette.
A few days later, I sat Bernadette down and told her that maybe she needed to go back to Moissac for a while. We were making each other miserable. Besides, she hated Paris. She needed the country and to be around her family.
Miraculously, she agreed. Under one condition: "I want you to promise that you'll never leave me," she said, crying. "I'm going to tell Maurice to keep an eye on you. Maybe you could stay with him while I'm gone?"
"Whatever makes you happy. And I'll tell Georges to keep an eye on you to make sure you don't run away with a handsome soldier that you pick up at Le Nirvana." It was meant as a joke, but she just nodded at me solemnly.
Even with Bernadette gone for a few weeks, I was breaking down at work. The only thing that got me through was the awareness that my skills were getting stronger. Each sauce was a struggle, but one that I could work through with increasing confidence.
I still hid a little bit of everything I needed to have ready as backup in case Robuchon decided my sauce was shit just before service, and because I had to be prepared when inspiration struck. Out of the blue one morning, he decided he wanted to try something new. So he asked me to prepare a bunch of cockles for him. I steamed the cockles in the couscoussier and brought them to him.
"Where is the jus?" he asked.
"The jus?" He hadn't mentioned it. In fact, he hadn't mentioned anything, just said, "Prepare these."
"The jus! Why didn't you steam them and save the jus?"
I would have saved the jus if he had explained just a little bit more what he was looking for. But he hadn't asked for the jus, he'd asked me to steam cockles without explaining the purpose of the task. I tried to explain this, but he just cut me off.
"Why are you always sabotaging me?" And off he went. Forty-five minutes later, he'd escalated to screaming. "Have you no respect for the product?" He knew I worshipped those ingredients, but he kept jabbing me exactly where I was most sensitive. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore.
Underneath my breath, I said, "Shut the fuck up, asshole."
I didn't mean for him to hear me, but he did. "What did you say?" he asked, looking at me incredulously.
I looked at the ground and said nothing.
"Repeat what you said!" he bristled, challenging me.
Again, I said nothing.
He was sputtering now, in shock and furious because no one ever, ever talked back to Robuchon.
"If you're not happy, Ripert, just say the word," he said.
I thought about it for a second and for the first time, I answered truthfully.
"I'm not happy." I took my apron off and handed it to him.
I walked all the way to the end of the kitchen, every second lasting an hour. As I got to the top of the stairs to the locker room, I wondered what the hell I was doing. In that kitchen, we all believed that Robuchon was God: He knew everything there was to know about cooking. He knew everything that we did, no matter how well we thought we could hide our mistakes and shortcuts. And he knew every chef in Paris. He could truly make or break someone's career. Staying in that kitchen for as long as we could handle it was a sign of toughness and superiority that we all prided ourselves on.
And now I had thrown it all away. I'd worked for him for almost three years, and I'd just committed career suicide.
So I turned and walked back. Robuchon was in my station, finishing my dish.
"No, no," he said, pushing me away. "I don't need you."
That may have been true, but in that instant, I realized that I needed him. I needed my job. I could have done without the tactics, but I needed the instruction. I wanted the challenge of his elaborate dishes and his impossible sauces; I wanted to work in a place where chefs were breaking old rules and breaking new ground.
"No, I'll do it," I said and put on my apron.
He didn't say no. In fact, he didn't say anything. He just stayed there with me for a few minutes to make sure I finished the fish properly and returned to the pass. I could feel his eyes on me for the rest of the morning.
He didn't speak to me for three weeks. But wondering when he would use this transgression against me was punishment enough. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 48 | That January, I got an offer to cook in Puerto Rico. The salary was amazing. The perks were fantastic and I would be living in an island paradise. I made plans to leave Robuchon when the restaurant closed in June for the summer holiday. I gave my notice six months before. But by June, the offer—which had always seemed too good to be true—had fallen through.
Robuchon called me into his office. He was a chameleon, and when he wasn't in the kitchen, where he felt that his reputation was always on the line, he was approachable and warm.
"Eric, I heard you're not going to Puerto Rico," he said. "Why didn't you tell me?"
I shrugged. "The deal fell through."
"Do you have something else?" He seemed genuinely concerned.
"No."
"Where would you like to go?" he asked.
"Brazil," I answered, honestly.
He shut that idea down immediately. "No," he said. "I am not sending you on a tropical vacation." I mentioned Spain, and he shook his head. "You live right next to Spain. Why don't you go somewhere new, somewhere farther away? We're closed in July, so take a few weeks off, get your head straight, and when you come back, I'll help you find a job."
Somehow, I made it unscathed until almost the end. And then, leading into the final lunch service before the restaurant closed for vacation and I left for Moissac, I prepared a sauce that I knew wasn't good enough. It was a really difficult recipe for a dish that had just been put on the menu: John Dory topped with delicate fried rings of fresh onion and served with a refined sauce based on onion jus. It wasn't his best dish, but I was still responsible for it. I had foolishly decided not to chop all of the onions I needed for the reduction—and I could taste it in the weakness of the flavor. I began to panic, but there was no time to start again.
"Show me your sauce," said Robuchon, suddenly behind me. I handed him a spoonful, meeting his gaze as he tasted it.
His eyes sparkled as he said with a friendly smile, "See, Ripert? I told you so." Meaning: you'll never be a saucier.
Then, he softened. "It's okay. You can send it." |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 49 | I went home to Andorra for vacation, with a fun side trip to Spain. Shortly before I was to return to Paris, I got a call from Robuchon. True to his word, he had found me a job.
"So. I received a call from a good friend in Washington, Jean-Louis Palladin." I knew about Palladin: he was, they said, playful and passionate, energetic and fearless, a great French chef who had a very American verve. He had landed in Washington, D.C., opening a place at the Watergate Hotel and becoming a kind of rock star in the States. "He needs a chef de partie with the potential of becoming sous-chef, and I recommended you."
"America? I don't think I'm ready. And besides, I don't speak English."
He smiled—kindly, I thought. "You have proven yourself to be a fast learner. And you have certain skills. So it's decided?"
"I would be honored, Chef." |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 50 | Leaving Robuchon was unexpectedly bittersweet. I knew from the moment I finished my last shift at Jamin that I was leaving my mentor behind. He taught me discipline. He taught me technique. He taught me skills. He taught me flavor. He taught me speed. He taught me how to be a cook. Maybe I'm biased or even brainwashed, but I believe that Joël Robuchon is one of the defining chefs of not only my generation, but of the twentieth century. In terms of excellence, there are no standouts who can compete with what he did and the influence he wielded.
The longer I was away from him, the more I could see that Robuchon had a quality of wabi-sabi about him: the beauty of imperfection. Just like the beautiful tea bowls that Japanese artisans purposefully nick or chip at the bottom as a quiet reminder that there is no such thing as perfection, so was Robuchon flawed with his frustration and his temper. His food was divine, but the chef was a man, with all of the nicks and chips that make us human.
Georges was retired and so was I, at least until my visa came through. I decided to spend the time waiting for my travel papers at the farm in Moissac, with short trips to Andorra and Spain. Supposedly I was there to spend time with Bernadette, but every morning at dawn I'd slip out of her bed and walk the dirt road to Georges's house. After drinking a terrible cup of coffee—the ninety-year-old housekeeper brewed it in the fireplace, using an old sock for a filter—we'd drive to the market in Moissac in his beautiful Mercedes. In those days, you still bought your ingredients for the day, not the week, which meant that we always had the perfect excuse to get out.
No matter how shabby his sweater or how thick he liked to lay on his rural accent, Georges was the king of the market. Everyone in town knew exactly how much land he owned and what his farm had yielded the year before. He was stopped at every stall to chat with old friends or answer questions about this year's crops. His route always began at the covered vegetable market in the town square, buying whatever he didn't grow and pointing out produce that he could tell had been trucked in from other regions.
As soon as Georges entered the market, the vendors pulled their best items out of crates that they kept under their tables. He was truly committed to quality. He'd spend thirty minutes talking to the woman selling beans about how she grew the haricots Tarbais and how she liked to make cassoulet, taking a deep interest in her methods—or so it seemed. The knowing looks that women gave him as we passed from stall to stall and on to the café made me think of stories I still heard from my cousins and uncles about my father—what a ladies' man he had been. I was too young to remember my father as a flirt, but I took a kind of familial pride in watching Georges in action.
After the café, we'd make our way to the bakery, the butcher, the cheesemonger, and occasionally the fishmonger. I never set foot in the fishmonger's, due to an incident with a man selling oysters while I was in the army: when I'd gotten back to the farm and opened them for our lunch, they were no longer moving. I immediately asked Georges to drive me back to town, where I quietly told the vendor that the oysters were dead and asked for my money back. I thought I was doing him a favor by letting him know he had a bad batch. But he refused to take them.
"You don't know anything about oysters," he said, waving me away as he would any skinny twentysomething.
I looked to Georges to make sure it was okay to argue with the guy.
"Sir, believe me: I do. I have worked with beautiful oysters in the restaurants where I've cooked. And I have never opened a dead one until today."
"He cooked for Joël Robuchon!" Georges interjected, trying to be helpful.
"Ah, a Parisian. Well then, you really don't know anything," the man said. At that point, I got so angry that I upended the sack of oysters and dumped them on the floor before storming out of the building.
I called the sanitation services from the phone in the café, where Georges had ordered us wine to celebrate.
"You were right, Eric," said Georges as he clinked my glass. "You should always stand up for quality." I was glad to know I had Georges's support, but the whole ordeal ruined the fishmonger's for me.
My favorite part of going to town with Georges was our visit to the foie gras market. In Gascony, foie gras was something that you prepared at home during the winter and ate for Sunday suppers and special occasions. At least a hundred farmers carefully displayed their ducks and geese, arranging them on white tablecloths as though they were presenting rings at Cartier. And they were definitely valuable—at least, their livers were. The foie gras market is where Georges truly became a legend in my eyes.
"Le foie est petit," he'd say after barely caressing a freshly plucked mallard or goose. "Le foie est gros," he'd murmur, lightly running his hand along another. I still don't know how he did it. He didn't press them or prod them or even pick them up. He just brushed his fingers against their cool, nubby carcasses to feel how plump the liver was. Sometimes he could tell simply by looking. Bluish-black skin meant that the animal had been brutalized and the liver would be damaged too. And he was never wrong. He bought only the most impeccable foie.
We never made it home before eleven in the morning. The doméstique would unload the car as we set about making lunch in the fireplace. Georges's wife, Guillemette, would sometimes braise a hare in one corner of the fireplace. She'd cook it for two whole days and when she was done, it fell right off the bone. The pleasure of the smell, the pleasure of lifting the lid and seeing the evolution of the dish—to cook that dish gave you the illusion that you had all the time in the world. It was very different from restaurant cooking, where you were always working against time to make each dish perfect—and fast as you could. That hare could've cooked for two days, or five. There was no rush on Georges's farm.
The ceiling of the house was hung with hams and saucisson, which collected the smoke. When it was summertime and the small house smoldered with heat, the preserved meats would be moved into the cellar dug below the house. This was where the confit was kept. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 51 | In the kitchen, Georges also liked to prepare chou farci and braised pork neck with green olives, adding a little bit of flour to thicken the rich sauce. I cooked whenever I could, sometimes adapting Robuchon dishes for fun. If we were making moules marinières, I would take the mussels out of their shells and arrange them on each plate in the shape of a snail, dressing them with a sauce made from mayonnaise, crème fraîche, mussel juice, and lemon juice. But mostly I kept it simple. Although the last four years had taught me craftsmanship and instilled an appreciation for quality at the highest level, it was a relief to be able to improvise, to pay attention to the true nature of the ingredients.
Georges and his family often grilled carcasses of ducks and geese in the fireplace and made the most incredible French fries cooked in duck fat. And yet, as far as I can tell, even all these years later, no one ever had a problem with cholesterol. Everyone lived to be eighty. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 52 | Just as Georges selected his birds, so did I trust my hands to tell me about the produce—to tell, from touch, if a tomato might be watery and flavorless, or thick-skinned and starchy, and then pick a better one. And then I let my instinct tell me how to prepare it, without putting all of my effort into the presentation. For once, I knew what it felt like to cook with my heart and soul, just like my grandmother in Nice. Even if I was only roasting a chicken or making a pizza à la française, this country cooking was as liberating as it was satisfying. I was making what I wanted for the first time in my life, and I was doing it for people I cared about. To be able to watch someone's face as they tasted my food was a new thrill, and something that never got old.
"You know, Eric," Bernadette's mom said one day as we ate lunch under the chestnut tree, "I heard there's a job opening in the hospital cafeteria. All you'd have to do is open cans! Imagine how much easier that would be than going to America."
I smiled, not wanting to look down on hospital cooks, but I was confident that no matter what Robuchon claimed my failings were, that kind of job would not be my fate.
In the afternoons, Georges and I would walk the fields to see what was ready to be harvested. He explained how each fruit and vegetable was cultivated to his specifications, starting with their planting during the appropriate moon. During my visits between Andorra and the ocean that summer, I watched apricots ripen to the color of sunsets, cherries get fat and sweet, artichoke plants grow tall and spiked with purple thistles. In early September, when I moved into Bernadette's full-time, the special golden Chasselas grapes were ready. Then there were the apples, red and juicy, like candy hanging from a tree, followed by the pears. Georges strolled us through the cool, corrugated-steel warehouse to make sure that produce was being properly sorted, boxed, and stored for export. After that we would stop by the animal pens out back to count the eggs and pet the pigs. When I was a kid, I gathered eggs and picked up fresh milk on the small farms where my mother and I had lived, but this was a real operation. I was in heaven.
Obviously I wasn't a farmer—these were people who could predict the weather based on which way the wind was blowing. But I tried helping out a few times, even though it wasn't expected of me. (Like Georges, I enjoyed a special retiree status.) In July I spent a single morning destroying my hands in an attempt to harvest artichokes, and an hour or two running apples through the sorter in the fall. I was invited to kill chickens, but politely said I'd rather see how they did it first. The chickens were stupid: you could just pick them up and slit their throats before they knew what had happened. But the pigs were smart. Worse (for me), the family treated them as pets, naming them and petting them right up until the minute they called them into the pen to be killed in the winter.
The first one trotted in when he heard them call "Viens viens viens!" Georges briskly slit the pig's throat while a few workers held him. The animal's cries were chillingly human. I was even more traumatized by the sight of blood everywhere—it reminded me of Hugo in my mother's bathroom. The second pig frantically looked for his friend when he heard his name called. Once he realized what had happened, he refused to go into the pen. I went back into the house, unable to watch. Later, I had a hard time helping them break down the bled-out animal for the winter's hams, sausages, and boudin noir. I knew that they respected the animals' lives, but I wasn't able to help them close the cycle.
However, I was allowed to attend one sacred ritual that the other men on the farm were not: the making of the foie gras. The men weren't even allowed into the house during the days it was being prepared, since it was feared that their dirt-caked hands and shoes would contaminate the jars and cans of confited liver that would make their meals so satisfying and be pulled out on special occasions throughout the year.
"We've never allowed a single man in here," Georges's wife said to me with a wink. "You, you're the exception." The other women giggled and put their heads back down to the serious task at hand.
For two days each week after the holidays, the women in the community turned the big farm kitchen into a preservation laboratory. The Mercedes-loads of geese and mallards that Georges brought home were methodically broken down and separated into their useful parts. First the duck legs and breasts were layered with salt and bay leaves and left overnight to cure. The next day, the salt was washed off and the meat slowly cooked in the fat that had been rendered in massive copper pots, filling the house with a strong aroma, like rasher after rasher of bacon being fried on a Sunday morning. At dinner, we grilled the carcasses in the fireplace and shared the charred bits of meat, licking our fingers with relish.
The corn-fattened livers were carefully deveined and soaked in milk to draw out any bitterness before being canned. In Gascony, it was sacrilegious to eat foie gras medium-rare, or mi-cuit: it had to be well done. The brownish-yellow lobes were sliced and put into cans, then boiled in a giant kettle, where they cooked in their own fat. Throughout the process, everything was exactingly sterilized and measured—a single crumb or missing gram of salt could spoil a valuable batch. After each jar and can had been boiled, we carefully labeled them and arranged them in the cellar. The day the pigs were slaughtered, we set about confiting and canning the pork loin, which would be sliced like ham come summer. We marked the end of our month of labor with a big celebration dinner.
I didn't realize it at the time, but my months at the farm, working with meat—the pigs and the ducks and the geese—added a muscularity to my cooking that would hold me in good stead when I got to America and the next stage of my career. Fish, which is what I did for Robuchon, is more technical, but meat is more sensual. At the time, I was more of an intellectual chef. But it's important to have both—the instinct and the technique, the elegance and the muscular sensuality—to be a great chef.
For those weeks, I felt like I was back at my grandparents' in Nîmes for the making of the conserves au tomate. My grandfather and I would harvest as many tomatoes as we could, pulling them home in a cart. My grandmother blanched, peeled, and seeded them, packing them into clean jars, while my grandfather fed wood into the stove in the backyard. The jars went into the big pressurized washtub that was used to boil the linen sheets. I spent hours going from the kitchen to the stove, inhaling the sweet smoke in the thick August air. The next day, we'd move on to string beans. In Andorra in the fall, I also helped my mother put up the wild mushrooms that we harvested in our special spots in the mountains around our home. The pop of a jar unsealing in winter still makes me nostalgic. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 53 | Every two or three weeks, I drove the four hours back to Andorra to see my mother, climb mountains, and get away from Bernadette. Things were better with her only in that I spent most of my time with Georges. She was back at her job in the gift shop in town for most of the day. When we were home in Moissac, our fights weren't as bad because her family was there. (Jean-Claude was always studying, so I said we had to respect his silence.) Also, I had adapted to the farmer's way of living: sleep when the sun goes down, wake when it rises. We didn't overlap that often, but when we did, it was a disaster. We were both so young, and I didn't know how to take the time to make her feel assured of my love, when all of my energy was poured into my career, any more than she knew how to manage her insecurities.
In Moissac, being so close to the source of the food and the rhythm of nature made me appreciate my job as a cook even more, and I was itching to get back to building my career. I didn't want to leave Georges, but the winter months had cut our market mornings and field walks short. (November through February were mostly about maintaining the trees.) As much as I loved the smell of the icy soil and hay mixing with cut branches and wood smoke, I wasn't used to being away from a restaurant kitchen for so long. I was eager to get back to work. The joke about the job at the hospital cafeteria was starting to get old. I started calling D.C. every two days, increasingly anxious to move on to the next phase of my life. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 54 | Still, even now, whenever I cook a rustic lunch over a fire I think about Georges and all he taught me about the beauty of a simple meal. I grew up in a small village, but Andorra was a little more cosmopolitan. Before Georges, I had never had any contact with a real gentleman farmer. I had no real experience with rural living. Georges and the people who worked for him were amazingly efficient in every way. They used every bit of land they owned, they used every part of the food they got.
Georges and his extended group of family and friends were—and remain—great, great people. They prepared me for my next stage of cooking—working for Jean-Louis Palladin. Palladin was from that part of the country and that's what his cooking was about: the powerful flavors of meats and innards, the transformative power of fat saved from meat and fowl. I'd just come from Jamin, one of the most refined kitchens in the world. Although I didn't know it yet, if I hadn't had those months on the farm, I would have never understood Jean-Louis.
Every time I cook on a fireplace, it all comes rushing back: the hams hanging, the grandma stewing the hare, fries in duck fat, the morning coffee cooked on an open flame. Georges's greatest gift is how this all lives on in me. It was a very happy time in my life, and that was an important lesson too: to learn how little it took to be happy, to understand from a young age that the human heart is a small and delicate vase. You must handle it carefully, but in the right circumstances, it does not take much to fill it up. |
32 Yolks | Eric Ripert | [
"Andorra",
"food and drink",
"France",
"biography"
] | [] | Chapter 55 | Finally, that March, Jean-Louis Palladin's cool, raspy voice came on the line and told me that the visa had come through at last. He wanted me there in April.
I knew that I had to break up with Bernadette for the last time. If we didn't, it would just keep dragging on. She'd come to Andorra. She'd probably find me in Washington.
"Here's what I'll do," I told her as she sat on the edge of her bed. "You know that the relationship that we have is very bad."
She started to protest, but I kept talking. "I'm going there with no money, and neither of us speaks English. If it's bad, it'll be like Paris but worse. We should end it."
She began to cry. "It's not that I don't want to be a normal person," she said. "I don't want to make a scandal every time we're together. It's just…I can't control you, and I can't control myself. You're right: you should go."
Saying goodbye to Georges was harder. I knew that we would remain friends, but I also knew that America was far away and he was already an old man. Thinking of my father's death, I wondered if I should attempt to say goodbye just in case I never saw him again. Early the next morning, the coffee brewing in the fireplace, I tried to start, but he waved away all my attempts at sentimentalism.
"You think because I'm just a simple farmer that you'll be done with me?" he joked. "Just because you're going to cook for the president of the United States in Washington, D.C., doesn't mean I won't have a thing or two to teach you when you come home."
I began to explain that I wasn't going to cook for the president. I was going to Washington, D.C., not the White House. But Georges just laughed.
"I'm just having my fun," he said. Then he asked, "You taking Bernadette with you?"
"No, we're ending it."
"Don't feel guilty," Georges said. "She'll find herself another stray dog. Maybe the next one will like being kept on a leash." Then he laughed again, the kind of full-bodied laugh that filled the entire room. And it occurred to me that for the first time, in a long time, I was happy.
Georges, Raymond, Jacques, Maurice. In the year of changes ahead of me, I would often think of all of the good, wise men who touched my life. Could it be that, somehow, my father sent them? Pointed them toward me, as guides, to help complete the work he could not? My father died when I was young. That is the central tragedy of my life. But his spirit never left me, and that may be the defining miracle of my life.
I packed only one suitcase for my move to America, with some sweaters and my knives. The restaurant would provide my uniform, and I could buy whatever clothes I needed once I got there with the money my mother had given me. Besides, who knew what would come of this job. I remember thinking, I might be back in a month. I had no idea that I was about to build an entire life in America, that I would never again live in France. One suitcase, and it wasn't even packed to the gills. Perhaps unconsciously, I was leaving room for all of the possibilities.
To get to America, I would have to take two planes—one from Toulouse to Paris and another from Paris to Washington, D.C. My mother drove me to the airport in Toulouse and, as we had so many times before, we drove to the top of the mountain and there at the very top, we crossed the border from Andorra to France. When we got to the border, my mother stopped the car and gave the customs agents our documents. I remember her saying, with great pride, "My son has been invited to be a chef in America. Look at him, he's still just a kid and he's already made his name in Paris. They have invited him abroad."
Usually I would try to shush her, have her not embarrass me. During that last visit, I took great pains to point out that I was twenty-four years old. "Hey, I'm not a kid, I'm a man." But my mother insisted on billing me as a child prodigy. While she bragged about me to the customs agents, I sat quietly, lost in my own thoughts. I was deeply aware that I was turning a page, that I was—in my young life—at the top of the mountain in more ways than one. My childhood was over. I knew that I would never live in Andorra again, that I would never again have this back and forth of living with Mom. I had this sixth sense telling me, "This is over. You're going to America and you will never come back to Andorra in the same way."
I was not yet a Buddhist, but I had this very Zen moment of being absolutely and completely in the present. We couldn't have spent more than thirty minutes at the border and yet time slowed down so much that it felt like days. I looked at the mountains where I had hiked and cooked with my family and friends. This was the backdrop to the happiest moments I can remember and even that was a kind of revelation: my life had seemed so hard, but it felt good to look out at the bright blue sky and be able to recall so much happiness. I remember feeling a certain nostalgia because as much as I wanted to, I couldn't take the mountains with me. Once we cleared border control and my mother's car began its downhill descent, there were even more goodbyes. We were in France, but France for me was done. Whatever I had done in Paris, that was over too. I knew I would never go back to the world of Robuchon and Jamin. Twice was enough.
Years after my father passed away, my sister ran into some of the friends who had been with him on the mountaintop when he died. Apparently, he was holding his camera and peering through the lens right before he collapsed. "You go ahead," he had encouraged them. "I want to take some pictures." But his friends were in no rush, so they were just a few feet away when he began to snap photo after photo. Cameras were big mechanical boxes back in the late 1970s and one friend in particular remembered the sound of my father taking pictures, the click of each image being captured on film. All of the friends remembered his last words and it was a story they had discussed many times over the years. Before he passed away, before he dropped the camera and his heart stopped, my father looked through the lens and said, "Oh, it's so beautiful." I often wondered what exactly he saw through the camera as he gazed at the end of his life. I thought of him as we drove to the airport because I knew that, in my own way, I was seeing things for the first and the last time.
In Paris, everyone I cooked with—with rare exceptions—was French. There is a shorthand, a sameness that you come to take for granted, under those circumstances. I had very little fear about my new life because I thought anything would be easier than Robuchon. I did not realize how extremely naïve I was about America. First of all, I didn't speak English. I thought, Jean Louis is going to be kind to me because he's French. We're going to speak in French. He's going to be cool.
Then my ego started kicking in: You know they probably need me in America because I'm a great cook. I came from Robuchon and now I'm going to come to America. I thought there'd be a kind of culinary red carpet for me at the airport. I had no idea of the struggle ahead of me and how it would humble me. I did not know it yet, but an American restaurant kitchen is the perfect place for an immigrant to find his way: I would be surrounded by people who did not speak English as their first language, who know deeply and profoundly what it feels like to leave your country, without a safety net, to leave everything and everyone you know behind.
I also did not think that I would spend decades in America. I thought I was going for a training stint: three years, tops. My dream was to open a restaurant in Spain, my own mash-up of Jacques's place in Andorra and the kind of innovative cooking we were doing at Jamin: a small, intimate restaurant, with great service and great cuisine. I had vacationed in Spain since I was a teenager, and it had always been a fun place. I imagined I would end up there: pursuing a Michelin star or two, but also making sure that I had a great quality of life.
I knew that America would be an important part of my development as a chef, but I did not think, at twenty-four, that it would become home. Once I said goodbye to my mother, once I de-boarded the short flight from Toulouse to Paris, I set my mind on the adventure ahead of me.
Who would I be in America? Nobody knew me there, so I had—I thought—the opportunity to choose. I would be authoritative and modern like Bouchet, strong in technique and spirit like Maurice, creative and maybe a little unpredictable like Robuchon, dedicated and joyful like Georges.
I sometimes wondered why I hadn't gone into banking like my father or become an entrepreneur like my mother. While it is true that I developed a taste for luxury early—I can still picture myself in Jacques's kitchen at age thirteen, the two of us eating spoonfuls of Beluga caviar, scooping it straight from the tin—I have always liked the practicality of kitchen life: the way that every meal begins not with fireworks but a foundation of well-honed basics, a well-executed mise en place, and an appreciation for the ingredients. Georges was never in the kitchen like Maurice and Jacques, but he could see it in me: the dedication to the basics, the desire to master each dish and technique, the way that cooking was a mountain that I would patiently and joyfully hike until I made it to the top.
For whatever reason, I wasn't nervous when my mother left me at the Toulouse airport, perhaps because this car ride was so different from the monumental ones we had taken before. I was not eight, being exiled to boarding school. I was not fifteen, a kid headed off to my second-choice culinary college. I was not even the seventeen-year-old arriving for work at La Tour d'Argent. My boyhood had wounded me but, in time, I had managed to gather the pieces together into something that felt fairly whole.
During my transfer at Charles de Gaulle, I had just a handful of francs left, so I went to the newsstand. I picked up an issue of Playboy, thinking it a very adult purchase. But on the way to the cash register, a book on a low shelf caught my eye: it was about Tibet. Much like the moment when I had to decide between a date and my first dinner at Jamin, I found myself deciding between an immediate pleasure and the opening of a door that could change my world. There was so much I wanted to get out of my trip to the States, and achievement in my field and romantic love were high on my list. The book about Tibet seemed to offer something that I did not realize I was missing: it spoke to the possibility for peace—not in the global sense but a peace that could exist in one's life and in one's heart. When the announcer said that my flight was boarding, I acted on instinct. I dropped the Playboy, grabbed the book, and ran to my gate.
Back then the airport had an elaborate system of calling passengers from one waiting room to the next until you finally boarded a bus that carried you out onto the tarmac, where you climbed—in the fresh air—a giant set of stairs up to the plane. I had a lot of time to think, and as I would do so often in the months and years to come, I thought of Robuchon.
He had shattered my confidence and instilled a kind of fear in me that even now defies explanation. As terrified as I was of Robuchon, I stayed at Jamin, and returned for a second tour, because I knew that he was teaching me more than I could have learned anywhere else. Though this was hard to keep in mind while he was yelling at me for my mistakes and while I cursed at him under my breath, he wasn't just breaking me for the sake of breaking me. He was molding me, and the other young chefs he had chosen to be part of Jamin, in his image.
In Robuchon's kitchen every ingredient was precious; nothing was to be taken for granted. For him, everything that we touched, from the smallest fava bean to a sliver of black truffle to a tablespoon of caviar, was equally alive and therefore important. Robuchon taught me that no ingredient is humble; every ingredient is sacred. It has been many years now and I have been shaped by many other chefs, but there are moments—like when I grab a tray of tomatoes—when I hear his voice urging me to respect the fact that even a tomato is precious, and it is as if I'm twenty again and he is walking beside me. In those moments what I remember is not the pain, but the possibility. It's like the Buddhist author Shunryu Suzuki wrote: "In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there are few." I had spent the better part of three years challenged by Robuchon's requests. But because of him, I was headed to America, a place I had dreamed of living since I was a boy. I knew then that he had seen something in me—not just a lack of skill, because the skills would come—but in all of my blankness, an endless span of possibility. |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | House of Madness | Julian and his friends were scheduled for shopping detail. Being an elf and therefore not requiring the sleep his companions did, Julian had grown bored in the stale, farty air of the Whore's Head Inn, and decided it might be a good idea to get a jump on the day.
Dave had been easy to convince, seeing the wisdom of arriving before the crowds. He had a Wisdom score of 17, after all.
Tim had taken a little more convincing, so Julian appealed to reason. The sooner they finished the day's obligations, the sooner he'd be able to start drinking. That was enough for Tim to scrape himself up off the floor.
Cooper, being neither wise nor reasonable, had required a more direct approach. A Ray of Frost under the loincloth had him wide awake, on his feet, and in a karate stance in an instant.
The effort proved worthwhile, as the marketplace was nearly empty, except for vendors opening up their carts, stalls, booths, and tents to hawk their days' wares. This made it extra startling when Tony the Elf suddenly stepped into their path from behind a vegetable cart.
"Just the fellas I was looking for."
"What did we do?" said Tim, glaring up at Cooper.
Cooper quickly removed his finger from his nostril. "What? I ain't done shit."
"Ha ha!" Tony the Elf said to Tim. "Good one!" After a few seconds of Tim not sharing in his mirth, he continued. "I'm not here to bring trouble." He took a knee to face Tim eye-to-eye. "I've got a lead on something you boys might be interested in."
Tim folded his arms and cocked his head to one side.
"What made you think we'd be in the market?" asked Julian, sharing Tim's skepticism. Tony the Elf wasn't normally one for a chipper good morning, especially to Julian and his friends. Dave said he'd even threatened to stab them in the face once, just for talking.
"Yeah," said Dave through a yawn. "Especially at this time of day."
Tony the Elf stood up. "I didn't. Just a matter of happenstance, that was. I was headed back to the Whore's Head to look for you."
"So what exactly is this great opportunity you've got for us?" asked Tim.
"Frank hooked me up with a lead on a haunted house. Hildegarde Manor, just south of town."
"Uh uh," said Tim flatly. "No thanks. We'll pass."
"Oh come on, Tim," said Cooper. "Please don't tell me you believe in ghosts."
"Of course I don't fucking believe in ghosts," snapped Tim. "I don't believe in half-orcs either, but take a look in a goddamn mirror."
"I'm with Tim," said Dave. "This is the Caverns and Creatures world. If there are ghosts in the Monster Manual, you can bet your beard that they're real."
"Can we fight ghosts?" asked Julian.
"We can't even touch them without magical weapons," said Tim. "But they can do some nasty shit to us. Frank's off his tits if he thinks we're going to go anywhere near a haunted house, not at the levels we're at."
"See now, that's the thing," said Tony the Elf. "I don't think the place is really haunted."
"And what makes you think that?"
"Frank and I got the scoop from Gorgonzola, who was inquiring about another matter."
"Using his Gather Information skill?" asked Julian. He'd seen Gorgonzola use the skill before, and it was remarkable how much information that little gnome had picked up in such a short amount of time.
"Yeah, right," said Tony the Elf. "He was out gathering information, and he heard tell of a man who barely made it out of that house with his life, after having watched all of his traveling companions murder each other."
Tim frowned. "You're not really selling this as well as you might think."
Tony the Elf looked left, then right, before whispering conspiratorially. "But this guy didn't say anything about seeing a ghost. It sounds less like a haunting to me, and more like a curse."
Tim put his palms out to Tony the Elf. "Okay okay. I think I see where we're miscommunicating here. The ultimate thing I want to avoid isn't necessarily ghosts, per se." He stressed the word ghosts with finger quotes. "It's more like… um, how do I put this? Oh yeah, being dead." Again with the finger quotes.
"Are you being sarcastic?"
"No, I'm being condescending."
"Listen," said Tony the Elf. "Just hear me out, will ya?"
"I'm listening," said Julian. Tim gave him a quick glare, but he pretended not to see it.
"Curses can be avoided if you take the right precautions." Tony the Elf looked left and right again before reaching into his shirt's inside pocket. He pulled out a bunch of leather cords, each one adorned with a circular silver charm about the size of a half dollar.
Julian reached for one tentatively. Tony the Elf handed him one of the cords. On the silver charm, Julian recognized the nine-pointed star, the magical symbol for protection.
"What are these?"
"Talismans," said Tony the Elf. "I bought them off the old lady in the mystic tent."
"The blind one?" asked Tim.
"That's her."
"How do you know she's for real?"
"Oh she's for real, all right," said Cooper. "I wagged my dick at her a couple weeks ago. Bitch didn't even flinch."
"That's reprehensible," said Dave. "Mocking blind people? That's a new low, Cooper, even for you."
"Well I didn't fucking know she was blind until then, now did I?"
When Cooper got defensive, he got loud. Passersby were beginning to take notice of their little congregation.
"Let's talk somewhere else," said Tony the Elf. "There's a pub across the street. I'm buying." He gave Tim a take-it-or-leave-it look and started walking.
"What do you think?" asked Tim.
"I don't know," said Julian. "It's kind of early in the morning to be getting hammered, and Frank sent us out to buy supplies. He'll be pissed if we turn up empty handed and shitfaced."
"Again," Dave added.
"Frank greenlit this mission," said Tim. The promise of free booze had obviously opened his mind. "And we can always pin the blame on Tony the Elf."
"I don't think it's wise," said Dave, "to make decisions about taking on potentially life-threatening undertakings while under the influence of alcohol."
"I've got to agree," said Julian. "This whole situation feels wrong." He looked at the talisman in his hand. "Still, I'd better return this before we go."
They crossed the wide, cobblestone street and walked into the pub through the open doorway. Dave's boots echoed noisily on the dark, mahogany floor. This place was a world apart from the Whore's Head Inn. It smelled of pine and cloves, with maybe a hint of grandfatherly tobacco. There wasn't a whiff of urine or vomit in the place. Cooper would no doubt rectify that in the next couple of minutes. Julian laughed to himself. Cooper. Rectify.
Tony the Elf was the lone patron in the establishment, sitting by himself at a large polished table with four glistening mugs of beer and a bottle of stonepiss.
Dave licked his lips. "We could listen to what he has to say."
"It'd be rude not to," said Cooper.
"One drink's not going to hurt," said Tim.
Julian shook his head and stepped back outside. He whistled at the sky. Ravenus descended from about a quarter of a mile away, where there were still a bunch of normal ravens circling.
"Shopping all finished, sir?" said Ravenus as he landed atop Julian's quarterstaff.
Julian rolled his eyes. "We haven't even started yet. What's going on over there?" He nodded up at the black birds circling in the sky. "You making some friends?"
"Nah," said Ravenus. "Conversations with other birds just don't cut it for me no more. Not since I become all smart like. We're all just hanging around watching two cats fight. I reckon we might get lucky. They both appear to be in pretty bad shape."
"Just try to keep out of trouble for a bit," said Julian. "We'll be in here if you need anything."
Ravenus bobbed his head. "Getting an early start then, are you sir?"
"Hey now. None of your beak. Go on and enjoy your cat."
"Very good, sir."
Ravenus flapped away, and Julian stepped back into the pub.
Cooper's glass was already empty.
"Jesus, Cooper," said Julian. "I haven't been outside more than a minute."
"I have a different metabolism than you," said Cooper. He turned around on his stool. "Bartender. One more please."
"Right away, sir," said the proprietor, an older man. Human. Smartly dressed in a crisp linen shirt, clean brown doublet, and a stain-free apron. Pubs tended to be a little classier as they got nearer the market area.
Tim rapped his knuckles on the table as he chugged down the last quarter of his own beer.
"Make it two," said Cooper.
"Why would Frank sign off for you to buy magical talismans for a one-shot gig?" Dave asked Tony the Elf. They were the only two who appeared to remember what they were in there for. Still, Dave threw back a shot of stonepiss, then wiped his mouth on the leopard fur of his forearm.
"Imagine it," said Tony the Elf. "How many lost travelers has this old house lured in over the years. Decades? Centuries maybe? There's bound to be piles of dead bodies in there."
"So far this only sounds appealing for Ravenus," said Julian.
"Now imagine what these people might have had on them when they met their dismal fate. Money? Probably. Weapons? Almost certainly. Who knows? Even if they were all just carrying standard traveling money, that adds up."
Julian sipped his beer and smiled on the inside. Though it was warm, it was a much higher quality brew than what they served at the Whore's Head.
"We're not even necessarily talking about peasants here," said Tim, slamming his mug down a little too hard on the table.
"I'll have to ask you to handle the glassware more delicately, sir," said the owner, replacing Tim and Cooper's empty mugs with fresh beers.
"Sorry," said Tim sheepishly. He waited for the barman to leave before continuing. "Imagine if a group of mid-level adventurers ducked in there, rolled some unlucky saving throws, started going apeshit on each other. Think of what kind of loot they might have left behind." Tim was a walking billboard on the dangers of alcohol.
Several drinks and a large plate of breakfast sausages later, Tony the Elf stood up. "I've got to hit the can. Settle the bill while I'm gone?" He tossed a small leather sack to Tim. Coins clinked together as the bag hit Tim's face and fell into his lap.
Tim shook his head like he was just coming out of a dream. "Yeah, sure thing."
When Tony the Elf disappeared through the front door and the barman had gone into the kitchen, Dave leaned in. "So, what do you think?"
Julian was relieved that someone else was prone to suggest thinking at all. "I don't like it. We get into enough trouble as it is without actively seeking it out."
"Thinking like that gets you nowhere in this game," said Tim. "To get ahead, you've got to jump on opportunities like this when they –" hiccup "present themselves."
"You're drunk," said Julian. "And this isn't a game."
"Technically, it is," said Tim. "It's Caverns and Creatures."
"You know what I mean."
"You're both right," said Dave. "We're in some kind of alternate reality, but it's still the game. And the situation we're in right now feels very game like. Think about it. We're in a tavern, and we've just been presented with a quest of sorts."
"Whoa," said Tim. "You are wise."
"What's even better," Dave continued. "We've got inside information. If Tony the Elf's information all checks out, these talismans might just let us bypass the one trick that house has up its sleeve. Our only challenge might be the logistics of hauling out all of that treasure."
Cooper cracked his knuckles and belched up the Ghost of Sausages Past. "I'm up for that challenge."
"Come on," said Julian. "You call that wise? Haven't you heard If it's too good to be true, it's probably… I forget how it goes, but you know what I'm saying."
"Pfft," said Tim. "We can swap empty proverbs all day. Haven't you heard When opportunity's knockin', don't come a-rockin'?"
Julian narrowed his eyes at Tim. "I can honestly say I've never heard that before in my life."
"Dang! Blast it!" the tavern owner shouted as he stomped out of the kitchen. He was clutching his left wrist with his right hand. Blood seeped through his fingers and dripped on the floor.
"Sir?" said Julian. "Are you okay?"
The barman winced as he poured a trickle of stonepiss over his bleeding arm. "I done sliced myself open with a gosh darn breadknife."
"Damn," said Dave. "That looks pretty bad."
Julian slapped Dave in the back of the head. "You're a cleric, idiot. Go help him!"
"Oh yeah." Dave stumble-waddled to the bar. "Give me your hand."
The barman stretched his injured arm over the bar.
"I heal thee," said Dave, touching his hand.
The barman's eyelids fluttered as Dave's healing magic coursed up through his arm. The wound sealed itself.
"There you go," said Dave, looking rather pleased with himself. "Good as new."
The barman opened and closed his hand, stretching the newly-healed muscles in his forearm. "I can't thank you enough. Praise be to the good gods."
Dave waved his hand dismissively. "Don't even mention it. I'm happy to help. The food was delicious."
"You serve a fine sausage, sir," said Cooper.
The barman grinned. "So says the missus."
"What do we owe you?" asked Tim, holding the money pouch Tony the Elf had given him.
"Put that away!" said the barman. "Your money's no good here!"
"Fuck," said Cooper. "How are we supposed to pay?"
"You see?" said Tim, tucking Tony the Elf's money into his inner vest pocket. "When opportunity's knockin' –"
"Yeah yeah," said Julian. "Don't come a-knockin'. Let's get out of here before he changes his mind."
"And you, sir," the barman said to Dave. He produced two blue glass bottles from under the bar. They were about a liter each. "Please take these."
"What are they?" asked Dave.
"Stonepiss," said the barman. "Special blend. My son made these. He's a court recognized distiller, my boy."
Dave's eyes were fixated on those bottles like they were a pair of glass breasts. "That's really too much. It was just a simple healing spell."
"Not a word of it. That was a nasty cut I gave myself. If not for you, I might not have lived to see my son again, nor serve another drink. I insist."
"You're much too kind, sir." Dave shifted the contents of his bag around to make room for the two bottles. "You can be sure we'll visit here again real soon."
The barman flexed his left arm. He had some muscle on him for an old man. "I'll be looking forward to it."
Dave finished up his goodbyes and the four of them were soon out on the street again.
"What's keeping Tony the Elf?" asked Tim.
Dave frowned. "Maybe he didn't handle that sausage so well."
"Or maybe that's exactly what he's doing," said Cooper.
"What's that?" asked Julian.
"Handling his sausage." Cooper winked. "He's probably thinking about Tim."
They hung out in front of the tavern for another minute or two – just enough time for Julian to call Ravenus back – when Tony the Elf finally sauntered out from around the side of the building, straightening up his pants.
"You fellas ready to roll?"
"What?" said Tim. "You want to go today?"
"Now?" added Cooper.
"That survivor's still out there telling his story. Frank wants us to hit this place before someone else comes up with the same idea that we did."
"You wouldn't rather wait until we're sober?" asked Dave.
"You'll have plenty of time to sober up on the way."
"I don't want to sober up on the way," said Tim. "I only just started drinking."
As Tony the Elf led the way north, Julian noticed Tim sneaking shots from his hip flask every now and again. He might not be stone cold sober when they reached their destination, but hopefully he would be less shitfaced than he was now.
The western bank of the Bluerun River on the north side of Cardinia was like a distorted reflection of the south. Here, too, were large, two story homes built from brick or stone, luxurious by this world's standards, but most of them looked abandoned, in varying stages of ruin. Tree roots had cracked foundations. Toppled statues were thick with moss. Wild vines ran up walls and into cracked windows.
"What happened here?" asked Julian.
"War happened," said Tony the Elf like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Ever hear of a little thing called The Wars of the Fractured Kingdom?"
"I think I remember hearing something about it in passing."
Tony the Elf stopped in his tracks and turned around to look at Julian. His grey eyes bored deep into him. It almost felt invasive.
"What?" Julian finally said.
"Hmph," said Tony the Elf. He turned around and continued walking.
"We almost there?" said Cooper. "I gotta drop the kids off at the pool."
Tony the Elf stopped again. He seldom had patience for Cooper. "I beg your pardon?"
"I gotta take a shit."
"Can't you hold it? We're nearly there."
"Maybe it'd be better for him to do that out here," said Dave. "The house is likely to smell bad enough as it is."
Tony the Elf looked quizzically at Dave. "Why would you say that?"
Dave shrugged. "Because of all the rotting corpses?"
Tony the Elf smiled. "Oh yes, of course. Now that you mention it, I wish I had thought to bring some mint leaves or something."
Cooper stomped off what was left of the old dirt road and disappeared into the tall grass. Tim swigged down some stonepiss, not even bothering to hide it anymore, while he urinated on the side of the road.
At least ten minutes passed. Julian was happy he had gone easy on the breakfast.
"What was in those sausages?" asked Dave.
Tim screwed the cap onto his flask and put it in his vest pocket. "That's a question you almost never want the answer to."
"I guess I'm lucky to have that +2 Save versus Poison."
"You have what?" asked Tony the Elf.
"Because I'm a dwarf."
Tony the Elf looked at him doubtfully. "Oh right."
"I don't like this," said Dave. "Something's wrong."
"You worry every time Cooper goes for a shit?" asked Tim. "You're going to have a heart attack before you're forty."
"Yeah, he shits a lot. But he's usually quick about it. He never takes this long."
"Relax," said Tony the Elf. "You said yourself it's probably just the sausages. You watch. He'll be back here any second now."
"Sorry for the holdup!" When Cooper jogged back into view, something was off about him. He looked cleaner somehow. Slimmer too, maybe.
From the look on Tim's face, he must have shared Julian's assessment. "How big a shit did you take?"
Cooper stopped jogging and frowned. "I, umm… I don't know how to answer that. Considerably?"
"So glad to see you again!" said Tony the Elf. If it was meant to sound sarcastic, he failed his Diplomacy check. "Look sharp, gentlemen. The next house up the road is our target."
"Shouldn't we get our talismans ready?" asked Julian.
"Oh right!" said Tony the Elf. "Good thinking!" He handed out talismans to each member of the party who, in turn, looped the chords over their heads and around their necks.
"What about Ravenus?" asked Julian. "Do you think he needs a talisman?"
Tony the Elf frowned. "I shouldn't think so. He's your familiar, right? Surely, your talisman will provide protection for the both of you."
"You don't sound very sure of yourself, and I don't want to take any chances." Julian whistled for Ravenus.
"Anything amiss, sir?" asked Ravenus, flapping down to perch atop Julian's quarterstaff.
"Why don't you sit this one out. We shouldn't be in there too long. Go see if you can't scrounge up a dead rat or something."
"As you wish, sir," said Ravenus. He pushed off from the quarterstaff and took flight.
Tony the Elf led the way up the footpath. Cooper walked at his side, trailing slightly behind. A few minutes later they stood before an ancient wrought iron gateway thickly overgrown with sickly, brownish-green vines. They wrapped around the bars like old people's fingers. The gate itself had been removed from the hinges, leaving just a curtain of vines for them to pass through. At the top of the gateway, the iron had been bent to form letters. Hildegarde Manor.
"Well," said Cooper. "This is the place, all right." He stepped through the vine curtain. Tony the Elf held the vines aside to allow everyone else to pass through, and he took the rear.
The house was much the same as the others they had passed. Two stories, brick and mortar, crawling with vines. Broken windows seemed to stare at Julian like dead eyes. It was everything a haunted house should be. Julian knew that his imagination was largely to blame, but this place truly gave him the willies.
"I don't like this," said Dave, digging in his bag. He had obviously caught a similar case of the willies. He pulled out one of the expensive bottles of stonepiss, uncorked it, and took a generous swig. A look of calm came over him. "That barman wasn't kidding. This is some good stuff."
Tim held his open flask to Dave. "Fill me up, would you?" Dave poured. Stonepiss spilled onto the ground, because both of their hands were trembling slightly.
"Come on, man," Julian said to Tim. "Don't you think you've had enough?"
"Liquid courage," said Tim. "I'll need a bit more before stepping into that creepy ass house." He took a small sip from his flask. "Hot damn, that is good!"
"You know," said Julian. "We don't actually have to go through with this. We can turn back right now."
"You guys are letting your imaginations get carried away," said Tony the Elf. "There's absolutely nothing to be afraid of." He grasped the talisman hanging from his neck. "We've got these, remember?"
Julian frowned. "Of course. What could be safer than walking into a cursed and/or haunted house with some trinkets you bought off a blind stranger?"
Tony the Elf grinned. "That's the spirit! Now come on." He and Cooper confidently strolled up to the door. Tony the Elf reached for the handle.
"Stop!" cried Tim, running up behind them.
Tony the Elf jerked his hand away from the door like he'd just noticed it was crawling with angry bees. "What?"
Tim shoved him aside. "What's the point of bringing me along if you're not going to let me use my rogue abilities?"
"What?" Tony the Elf repeated.
"Let me check the door for traps," said Tim. "Fucking noob."
"Noob?"
Tim pulled out his dagger, stood clear of the doorway, and tentatively poked at the handle. Nothing happened. He leaned in closer, running the dagger blade up the narrow gap between door and frame.
Tim stood back and nodded. "It looks clear to me. Cooper, kick it down."
"Are you daft?" said Tony the Elf. "Why wouldn't you just try –"
"Stay back, Tony the Elf," said Tim. "This is how you gain the element of surprise. Kick that bitch down, Cooper."
"Umm… Okay," said Cooper. He paused for a moment, looking doubtfully at the door. Finally, he lifted his right leg. "Ya-ha!"
Ya-ha? Julian mouthed to Dave. Dave shrugged."
Cooper slammed his heel into the door, knocking himself on his ass. The door didn't budge.
"What kind of pussy kick was that?" asked Tim. "I could have hit the door harder with my little dick."
"Don't let me stop you," said Cooper. "That door's solid oak."
"Use your Barbarian Rage," suggested Dave.
Cooper sat on the front porch looking puzzled. "Barbarian…" He placed the tips of his index fingers on his temples.
"Coop?" said Julian. "You okay?"
"Barbarian Rage," Cooper said to himself. "I can use it once per day."
"That's right," said Tim. "So let's get it on. Get angry, my man!"
Cooper removed his fingers from his temples, looked at Tim, and shrugged. "I just remembered. I already used it today."
"What are you talking about?" Tim demanded. It almost sounded accusatory. "We've been with you all morning."
"I used it when I was relieving myself," said Cooper. "I was having a little trouble getting it out, if you take my meaning. I needed a little extra push."
"You did what?"
"Those fucking sausages," said Dave, shaking his head. "Dammit, Cooper! Barbarian Rage isn't supposed to be used as a laxative! I can't believe you'd go and waste your one talent like –"
"This is stupid," said Tony the Elf, pushing his way past Tim. "It's a wonder how you four idiots make it through each day without drowning in your own drool." He pulled the handle. The door opened with ease. "See?" He stepped across the threshold.
Cooper stepped in after him. Tim took a nice, long swig of stonepiss and followed them in.
Dave and Julian stood just outside the open door.
"Are the talismans working?" asked Julian. "How do you feel?"
Tim smiled. "I've got a nice buzz going."
Tony the Elf looked down at him. "Do you feel like you want to stab me?"
"Kinda."
Dave rolled his eyes. "I guess they're working." He stepped into the house.
Fighting every fiber of common sense and self-preservation instinct, Julian stepped across the threshold. He was happy to note that, once inside, he felt no change. No murderous urges or thirsts for blood. The inside of the house, full of dust and cobwebs, was no less creepy than the outside. Dust motes swirled and danced like undead fairies in the few beams of sunlight which managed to penetrate through the cracks in the windows. This wasn't the sort of place Julian would ever want to visit at night, but the fact that he and his friends weren't all hacking away at each other was strangely comforting.
"Where are all the dead bodies?" asked Dave.
The air was thick with mildew and water rot, but Julian wasn't picking up the scent of any decaying bodies. Still, someone had been here. The dusty floor was littered with footprints of varying shapes and sizes.
Tim moved a wooden stool over to a desk next to the wall of what Julian guessed once served as a sort of living room. He climbed onto the stool, then opened the top drawer of the desk.
"Sweet! Candles!" He pulled out two handfuls of long, thin white candles. "Let's light these bitches up." He hopped down from the stool and handed everyone a few candles.
Julian, with his Low Light Vision, was able to see just fine with the meager amount of sunlight flowing in through the windows, but he had no objections to adding some more light, if only just to keep the creepiness at bay.
"I can only find this one candle holder," he said. "What are we supposed to do with the rest of the candles?"
"Think outside the box," said Tim. He pulled a small pouch out of his bag.
"What's that?" asked Julian.
"Caltrops," said Tim. "They have four sharp prongs on them, so be careful not to step on them. They're actually made to slow down pursuers. But if you poke one prong into the bottom of a candle, the other three prongs should keep it upright." He demonstrated, and set the shoddily-mounted candle on the floor. "Voila! Instant candle holder."
"That definitely looks like a fire hazard," said Dave.
"Explain to me why I'd give a fuck," said Tim. "All of you assholes can see in the dark. I can't see shit."
Before long, the whole room was awash in a warm, cozy glow. Candles stood on every available chair, shelf, and tabletop.
Tim climbed back up onto his stool, and from there onto the table. He wiped a layer of dust off a painting hanging on the wall, revealing the face of an elderly bearded man. Julian guessed he was probably the patriarch of the Hildegardes.
"Hey, Cooper," said Tim. "What's this picture of your mom doing here?"
"I'm pretty sure that's a man," said Cooper.
Tim pursed his lips and nodded slowly. "Hey, would you mind grabbing me that book up on the top shelf?" he asked, pointing to a nearby bookcase.
Cooper turned around and looked up at the shelf. "Which one?"
"The Dawn of the Third Age."
When Cooper reached up to grab the book, Tim pulled a length of rope out of his bag, jumped onto his back, and looped the rope around his neck. Cooper dropped to his knees, his eyes wide as he struggled to breathe. Tim pulled the ends of the rope ends tighter.
Julian gripped his quarterstaff with both hands, not quite sure of what he intended to do with it. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Who are you?" Tim shouted into Cooper's ear.
"Oh my god!" cried Dave. "The talismans aren't working! We have to get out of here!" He ran for the door, but it slammed shut against his face. He fell to the floor, covering his face with his hands. "Ow! My fucking nose!"
Tony the Elf drew the twin machetes he carried on his back. "Let him go, Tim!" He took a step toward Tim and Cooper.
"Stop!" said Julian. Tony the Elf stopped, but he didn't look like he'd hold for very long. "Just give me a minute. I've got Diplomacy. Tim, what's going on, man? Why are you strangling Cooper?"
"This isn't Cooper!" said Tim.
"He's… crazy…" Cooper gasped.
"Come on, Tim," pleaded Julian. "You've had a lot to drink today."
"This is the place, all right," said Tim. Cooper's face was turning from grey to blue.
"What?"
"That's what he said when he read the sign outside," said Tim. "He read the fucking sign!"
Illiteracy was a barbarian class feature, but Julian hardly thought it was evidence enough to murder a guy. "He might have been just talking out of his ass."
"He read the spine of that book," said Tim, jerking his head up toward the top shelf of the bookcase. "He didn't have the strength to kick open a simple wooden door."
"Can't… breathe…" said Cooper.
"So he made a low roll," said Julian.
"He didn't get a 'your mother' joke!"
"I'll admit, that is compelling evidence. But to be fair, it was a piss poor effort at a joke. Just let him go. We'll talk this through."
Cooper's face was now a deep purple.
"Look at this big fucker," said Tim. "I'm what, like thirty five pounds soaking wet? He should be able to shake me off whenever he wants. I'm telling you man, this isn't –"
"I'M REALLY ANGRY!" It was Cooper's voice, but it wasn't coming from the half-orc Tim was strangling. It sounded like it was coming from outside.
Dave sat up. "What the –"
The door smashed in, flying off the hinges and into Dave's face.
Cooper stood in the open doorway, completely naked and bulging with muscles. Broken lengths of rope hung from his wrists and ankles. His giant, scabby half-orc dick stood erect like a +5 Staff of Leprosy. "WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY CLOTHES?" He pointed at the Cooper that Tim was still strangling. "YOU!"
"Shit," gasped Tim's Cooper. He shrank so quickly that he slipped right through Tim's rope.
Tim landed on his feet, length of rope still in hand, seething at a mirror image of himself. Only the mirror image was naked and standing on top of Cooper's loincloth.
"What the fuck is going on here?" asked Cooper. Confusion had overtaken his rage, and he was back to his normal, filthy, naked self.
"Doppelganger," said Tim.
Naked Tim kicked real Tim in the nuts. Tim crumpled to the floor like a poorly executed piece of origami, and Naked Tim bolted out of the room.
Tim groaned in a puddle of his own urine. "Don't just stand there. Go after him." He opened his eyes and found himself staring at Cooper's limp dick, hanging like the trunk of a diseased elephant. "Jesus, dude. Put your loincloth on."
"I heal me," said Dave, having shoved the door off of himself. His beard was slick with nose blood, but he looked like he'd survive. He was sitting in a puddle bigger than Tim's.
"Check it out," said Cooper. "Dave pissed himself too."
"What?" said Dave. "I didn't –" He looked down. "Oh no!"
"Dude, take it easy. I do it like five times a day."
Dave rummaged through his bag. "Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" He pulled out a fragment of broken glass. "Goddammit, Cooper! You broke my booze."
"Oh shit. Sorry about that."
Dave got to his feet. "Let's go get that little bastard."
"Wait!" said Tony the Elf. "We can't just go charging in without a plan. What if there are more of them?"
"What if, indeed?" Julian whispered to himself. Tony the Elf should have been able to hear him. Being an elf, Julian knew what Tony's ears were capable of.
"Now Cooper," said Tony the Elf. "You're the strongest, but you're very noisy…"
"Hey Tony," whispered Julian. "There's a spider on your shoulder."
"Julian," said Tony the Elf. "You and I are pretty good at stealth, but you've got the added benefit of –"
"Magic Missile!"
"Well yes, among other spells." With his eyes so focused on the hallway his partner had gone down, this Tony the Elf imposter didn't even see the glowing bolt of energy headed across the room toward him. "I was thinking just magic in gen—Aaaauuuugggghhh!" The scream sounded less like an elf and more like a giant robotic insect.
Tony the Elf instantly morphed into what Julian assumed must be the creature's true form, because it sure as shit wasn't any of theirs. It looked more like a Roswell alien. Tall, bald, grey, and gangly, with huge, shiny black eyes. Tony the Elf's clothes still hung awkwardly on it. The machetes it carried were still very real.
"Very clever, elf," said the creature, though it didn't have a mouth that Julian could see. Its voice didn't sound exactly like Darth Vader's, but more like James Earl Jones sucking down a helium balloon and talking through an electric fan. "You've discovered us for what we are. I suggest you leave this place at once, or you shall never leave at all." It took off in the direction its partner had gone in.
Julian sighed with relief. "They're letting us go."
"Good," said Dave. "Let's get the hell out of here."
"Fuck that," said Tim. He took a swig of stonepiss from his flask. "They just want to get rid of us because they know they're outnumbered. I came here to loot some treasure and see some dead bodies. I'll be damned if I'm not going to do one of the two." He grabbed a candle off the floor and stumbled off after the doppelgangers.
"Come on, Tim!" Julian called after him. "Let it go!"
Tim belched loudly from down the hall. It was about as reasonable a response as Julian had expected.
"We can't let him go up there alone," said Cooper. He followed Tim.
"Shit," said Julian. He followed Cooper, and Dave waddled along behind him.
The hallway led to a stairwell. Cooper convinced Tim to let him take the lead, since he had the most Hit Points. The stairs were wet and rotten. They felt like they could give way with each step. The mildew smell on the second floor was nigh unbearable. There were two closed doors at the top of the stairs. One of them had some frantic shuffling noises going on behind it.
Tim gestured to use the handle. Cooper nodded reluctantly. Tim held up his fingers. One. Two. Three.
Cooper opened the door and the four of them burst in. A false Julian stood next to a closet on the other side of the room, frantically trying to put on his robe. It was a lost cause. He'd be dead before he could hope to put on his serape.
"Damn!" said False Julian.
"Ah!" said Tim. Julian turned around. Two Tims, identically dressed, locked elbows and danced around in a circle. "But how will you know who is the real Tim?"
One of the Tims stopped the dance abruptly. "I pissed myself when you kicked me in the nuts."
Sure enough, the true Tim was identifiable by his wet pants.
False Tim closed his eyes tight and balled his fists. He grunted until a small trickle of urine ran down his pant leg. It wasn't nearly enough to be convincing.
"This is just embarrassing," said Cooper.
"Enough of this foolishness!" boomed a voice from the other side of the room. A white, translucent image of the man from the painting downstairs appeared in a wall mirror. "You have failed me!"
Both doppelgangers dropped to their knees and bowed on the floor.
"We're sorry!" wailed False Julian. It grated at Julian's ears, like listening to a recording of his own voice.
"Do I really sound like that?"
Dave shrugged and nodded.
"Please forgive us!" said False Tim. The pee stains on his pants grew more convincing.
"Okay now," said the ghostly image in the mirror. "That's enough of that. Stand up and take your true forms."
The doppelgangers got to their feet. The one dressed like Julian looked as normal as an alien was likely to, but the one dressed like Tim looked ridiculous. Gangly as he was, he stretched his Tim costume to the limit. What were full-length pants now came up past the knees, soaking wet and squeezing his thighs. The tiny shirt and vest stretched around its ribcage, revealing his entire abdomen. Cooper started to giggle.
"SILENCE!" boomed the apparition in the mirror.
Thankfully, Cooper got his laughter under control.
"Now," said the ghost. "Who can tell me where you went wrong?"
The doppelganger in Tim's clothes hung his head. "I didn't stick to the plan. I saw an opportunity to take the half-orc out early, and I took it."
"Wrong!" said the ghost. "No matter how meticulously you think you've planned something, it will never play out exactly how you think. Improvisation and adaptability are vital. You showed initiative in taking out their strongest fighter early on."
"We didn't stake them out long enough?" said the doppelganger in Julian's clothes."
"Wrong again! Three weeks is more than enough time to learn to mimic their speech patterns and mannerisms. You're bloody doppelgangers, by the gods!"
Julian cleared his throat. "They shouldn't have left Cooper alive."
"Precisely," said the ghost.
"Dude!" said Cooper. "Whose side are you on?"
"I couldn't kill him," said the doppelganger. "I needed him alive so I could continue to read his mind."
"Then three weeks was not enough?"
"These people speak in strange ways. They speak of Hit Points and Saving Throws. It's some kind of code I have yet to crack. The half-orc uses over twenty different euphemisms to talk about his penis."
"Then just don't talk about your penis."
"That would compromise my cover severely. It's mostly all he talks about. Anyway, I tied him up really well. He shouldn't have been able to break out of those ropes."
The ghost raised its wispy, ethereal eyebrows at Cooper. "And yet here he stands." As he appeared to be waiting for some sort of explanation, everyone else in the room looked to Cooper as well.
Cooper mumbled something under his breath that Julian was quite pleased to hear, but was certain no one else in the room would be able to understand.
"I'm sorry, Cooper," said Julian. "Could you say that a little louder?"
Cooper growled in annoyance. "Ravenus clawed through the ropes."
"I beg your pardon?" said the ghost. "What's a ravenus?"
The doppelganger in Julian's clothes slapped himself on the forehead. "The elf's familiar!"
The ghost frowned. "This is most unsatisfactory. If you can't successfully infiltrate this band of drunken delinquents, how do you expect to avenge my death? I should destroy you both right now."
The doppelgangers dropped to the floor, bowing and groveling. The one in Tim's clothes pushed the limits of his pants. They ripped apart down the ass crack.
Both Cooper and Tim began giggling.
"Please, Lord Hildegarde! Don't kill us!"
"We want to have a family!"
"A FAMILY!" shouted the angry ghost. The house started rumbling as white fire burst out of the mirror. Cooper and Tim stopped giggling, in spite of the green shit splattering out of the newly-ripped pants. "Do you think I never wanted a family?"
Julian was terrified, but knew he stood a better chance of easing the tension in the room than anyone. Diplomacy or death. He gulped.
"Excuse me, my lord."
The white fire in the mirror intensified briefly as the ghost glared at Julian with wide, pupil-less eyes.
Julian stood his ground, unsure as to whether it was the house that was shaking more violently, or just his legs. He did his best to maintain the appearance of calm, innocent curiosity, pretending his asshole wasn't clenched tight enough to cut a steel rod in half.
The flames settled down and the house downshifted from shake to gentle rumble. "Yes? What is it?"
"I – I –" Come on, Julian. Keep your cool. "I couldn't help noticing you bear a striking resemblance to the handsome gentleman in the portrait downstairs." Too much? Does he think I'm coming on to him?
"You mean the one that resembles the half-orc's mother?"
Tim whimpered. "Sorry about that. It was just –"
"Aye, that was me," said the old ghost wistfully. The house stopped shaking altogether. "That painting was commissioned just before the Great War. I believe you young fellows have a fancier name for it now. With the northern hordes advancing, and the city walls too far from completion, the king decided to abandon this region. Cut his losses, if you will."
"Is that right?" said Julian, forcing himself to maintain eye contact with the ghost in the mirror. In his periphery, he noticed Tim sneaking a peek into the closet the two doppelgangers had been using.
"Aye, that's right! Now, that decision made us a prime target for thieves and looters. One such opportunist was named Zachary Figg. He broke into my house in the middle of the night and murdered me in my sleep."
"You don't say!" Julian made a concerted effort to pretend to be interested in this old man's life story. The fact that this lonely ghost was so starved for conversation was likely the reason they were all still alive.
"Robbed me blind, he did. And to make matters worse, this Figg went on to get caught up in the war. He rose through the ranks, and was eventually granted a lordship for valor. Valor! Can you believe such a thing?"
"How did you come to find out about all of this, what with being dead and all?"
"I still get my fair share of looters and squatters, much like yourselves and these two." He nodded down to the two trembling doppelgangers still prostrated on the floor. "I get what news I can out of them before I decide whether to use them or kill them."
"Or send them on their way?" Julian added hopefully.
The old ghost raised his eyebrows and grinned. "Not a chance."
The bedroom door slammed shut. A deadbolt slid into place.
Julian resisted his urge to start crying and groveling. There was still Diplomacy to be done. He might still be able to be reasoned with.
"You were murdered quite some time ago, weren't you?"
"Aye," said the ghost. "It's been nearly four hundred years, by my reckoning."
"Surely this Zachary Figg is long dead by now."
"Aye?" said the ghost, as if urging Julian to get to the point.
"How can you take vengeance on someone who's already dead?"
"He ended my line. I seek to end his."
Simple as that, eh? "You mean you want to kill his descendants?"
"My spirit will not rest until every last Figg – man, woman, and child – is slaughtered like the sons and daughters of the cowardly butcher they are."
"Dude," said Cooper. "That's kind of fucked up."
Julian glared at Cooper, but shared the sentiment. This old ghost's sanity was as dead as his body. There would be no reasoning with him. It was time to start working on a Plan B. In the meantime, he needed to keep talking.
"So that's what the doppelgangers are for? To infiltrate House Figg?"
"Aye," said the ghost. "But as you can see, they'll require a lot more training."
The doppelganger dressed in Julian's clothes raised his head. "So you don't aim to kill us, then?"
"No, of course I'm not going to kill you. Worthless as you are, you have skills uniquely suited to my needs. Who knows when I'll get another group of doppelgangers to sneak in here?"
Both doppelgangers stood up. "Oh thank you, sir. Thank you."
"Yes, yes," said the ghost. "Enough of that. But you need to learn ..."
Julian retreated to where Cooper and Dave were standing while the ghost conversed with his two minions. Tim was placing something into his vest pocket with a very satisfied grin on his face. Julian gestured for him to come join the rest of them.
Julian had an idea brewing. It wasn't a good one, but it was better than trying to have Cooper bust the door down. They'd all be ghosted to death before he made it to the door. Julian's plan involved confusion. It involved surprise. And like any of his other poorly thought out plans, it involved horses.
"Stay close together," Julian whispered when Tim joined the group. Taking the lead, Julian took a small step toward the center of the room.
"Where are we going?" asked Dave. "I thought you were trying to get us out of here. The door's over there."
"We're not going through the door," said Julian, taking another step. "Just stay close."
"… not enough to merely memorize patterns of speech and peculiar mannerisms," the ghost continued lecturing the doppelgangers. "You must become your characters, know their desires, their motivations, their fears. Only then will you be able to exploit this information to convince them to kill one another."
"Horse," said Julian once they had reached the center of the room. A spotted, brown draft horse appeared next to him.
Dave buried his face in his hands. "I should've known. This is so fucking stupid."
The horse whinnied and brayed at the sight of the ghost, but Julian had been expecting that. He stroked the horse's white mane. "Be calm, friend."
"What is the meaning of this?" demanded the ghost. "This is my bed chamber, not a stable!"
"Horse!" Julian said a second time, with an added bit of false confidence. A slightly smaller black horse appeared, and promptly started losing its shit.
"Get rid of these creatures at once!" roared the ghost. His face contorted with rage, and white flames engulfed the frame of the mirror.
"Um, Julian," said Cooper. "If you're trying to give this old dude a stroke, I've got some bad news for you."
The house shook violently. Julian had to hold on to Dave just to stay on his feet. The two doppelgangers stumbled toward the closet. The posts of the old, mildewed bed came loose and crashed onto the floor. The mirror exploded into a billion shards.
Julian closed his eyes to protect them from the glass.
"Shit!" cried Tim. "He's here!"
Julian opened his eyes. Hovering before, and slightly above them, the ghost pointed a white, translucent finger down at Julian. "You dare defy me? In my own home!"
"Don't let him touch you!" shouted Tim as the ghost floated toward them, never taking his eyes off Julian.
Dave grabbed Julian by the serape. "If there's a Phase 2 to this plan, now is the time!"
"HORSE!" Julian shouted a third time.
"Jesus Christ, dude!" shouted Dave. "You can't solve all of your problems with goddamn hors—"
A grey mare appeared right in front of them, facing away from the ghost. Julian patted it on its long face. "I'm really sorry, buddy."
The horse let out an ungodly howling noise that no horse had any business making when the spectral finger penetrated its flesh. It fell to the floor, finally prompting the collapse Julian had been hopefully anticipating.
What Julian had not been anticipating, as the second floor smashed into the first, was for the entire place to be engulfed in flames. The combination of Tim's homemade candle holders, Dave's broken booze, and Mr. Hildegarde's rage-quakes had set the old house ablaze.
Julian immediately started hacking as his lungs filled with smoke and dust. He shut his eyes to keep out the flying specks of ash. A cacophony of sound whirled around him as he tried to hold on to consciousness. The roar of flame. The cries of horses. Dave shouting.
"Water!"
A second later, Julian felt his body be picked up roughly and thrown through the air into a softer light and a cooler breeze. He landed on soft, cool grass. He forced his eyes open. He was outside. He was alive. He was – "Shit!"
Tim flew out of the open doorway and smashed into Julian like they were long-parted lovers.
"Move your fat fucking ass!" Cooper shouted from inside the burning house.
"I'm going as fast as I can!" said Dave, waddling out of the house. His beard was black with soot.
Cooper ran out behind him. Once they were safely in the grass, he tackled Dave. With Dave pinned on his back underneath him, Cooper grabbed him by the shoulders and repeatedly smashed his back into the ground.
"What… the… fuck… are… you… doing?" asked Dave as the back of his head kept slamming into the ground.
Cooper stood up. "Sorry, dude. Your bag was still on fire." It made sense. It must have still been soaked through with top shelf stonepiss.
Julian wiped the tears out of his eyes. "What do you suppose happens to a ghost when you destroy the place it haunts?"
"No idea," said Tim, taking a swig from his flask.
"Let's not stick around and find out," said Dave, waddling quickly toward the front gate of Hildegarde Manor.
The rest of the group followed him. From within the second floor of the house, Julian heard the tortured screams of a man who had just lost everything he'd known for the past four hundred years, as well as the tortured screams of two doppelgangers who were most likely on fire. He quickened his pace.
"And by the way," Dave said to Tim. "That's my stonepiss you're drinking."
Tim grinned. "Don't worry, Dave. There's plenty more where that came from."
"What do you mean?"
Tim pulled a green silk pouch out from his vest pocket and shook it. It sounded heavy with coins. "I found this in the bedroom closet. Second time today I've robbed those doppelfucks. I say we hit up that fancy tavern on the way back to the Whore's Head Inn. Have ourselves some classy drinks, in loving memory of our dearly departing friends."
Julian wasn't sure if he liked the idea of celebrating the deaths of two people who were currently burning to death, but he was more than ready for a drink.
"How much is in there?" asked Cooper.
"Dunno," said Tim. "I haven't had time to count it. But it might even be enough for us to deck ourselves out with some shiny new weapons."
"Or we could use it responsibly," said Dave. "Put it toward magical research? Try to figure out a way back home?"
"We can talk about it," said Tim. "Let's just get to that tavern, settle into a round of drinks, and see how much gold we're talking about first, huh?"
"Agreed," everyone said simultaneously.
Julian shouted skyward, "Ravenus!" |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 2 | As they approached Cardinia's city walls, the sinking sun underlit orange clouds against a lavender sky. With just a little bit of searching, they were able to locate the tavern they had drunk at that morning. It was much busier now, with only a couple empty tables left. Many of the patrons were uniformed city watchmen, and there were even a few Kingsguard.
Dave led the way inside, strutting up to the bar like he was a soldier returning home after personally punching Hitler in the dick. "Why hello there, good sir. We have returned!"
The barman turned around, gawking down at Dave with an expression of shock and bemusement. He rang a loud bell which hung above the bar. "It's them!" he said once he had the establishment's undivided attention. "These are the folks I was telling you all about!"
Several city watchmen stood up from their tables, forming a perimeter around the group. Two Kingsguard stood at attention in the doorway, covering their only hope at an exit. Something was definitely not right.
Dave waved a hand dismissively. "Oh please. You're really making too big a deal out of this."
"Too big a deal?" shouted the barman. "One of your lot clubbed me over the head, tied me up, stole my clothes, and then bled all over my bar! When I come to, I find two bottles of my finest liquor has been stolen, not to mention you didn't pay your tab! Now which part of that do you find I'm making too big a deal of?"
Dave looked like he'd just been stabbed in the soul. He reached his left arm back. "Tim! Money!"
"How much do you –"
"NOW!"
Tim grudgingly handed over the whole bag of coins.
Dave walked up to the bar, carefully placing the bag between himself and the barman. "Are you absolutely certain we're the men you're looking for?"
The barman opened the bag. Looking inside, his eyes went as wide as golf balls. "Sweet succubus!"
"Would you like us to escort you to the courthouse now," said one of the city watchmen, "so that you can press formal charges? Or shall we just throw them in a holding cell until you're ready."
"I'm terribly sorry, gentlemen," said the barman. "'Twas a false alarm."
"Are you quite sure, sir? They match your descriptions perfectly, right down to the curious band of leopard fur growing on the dwarf's forearm."
"I swear by the gods I've never seen these gentlemen before. Sorry for your troubles." He tossed the city watchman a coin from the bag. At first glance, it appeared silver, but shinier.
The watchman held the coin up to the light, then stared at the barman. "That's right generous of you, sir. Thank you very much!"
When all of the guards and soldiers took their seats, the barman addressed Dave. "I knew you was good lads! Now what'll you have to drink?"
Dave hung his head. "Three beers and a bottle of your cheapest stonepiss." |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Naga Please | Dave leaned back against his tree and basked in sunlight and contentment. This was what life was about. Being outside with your friends, drinking and fishing. Sure, they hadn't caught so much as a single fish in the four hours they'd been out here, but that wasn't the point. The pine-scented breeze was alive with the chatter of squirrels and the distant rush of the waterfall which fed this elevated lake. Camaraderie and nature. Here or in the real world, these were the things Dave valued most.
"This fucking sucks," said Tim. "What's wrong with these stupid fish?"
"Maybe fish in this world aren't partial to worms?" suggested Julian.
"We bought them at a goddamn bait shop." Tim reeled in his line. The rods and reels Gorgonzola had put together at the Whore's Head were bigger and clunkier than their real world counterparts, but they worked surprisingly well. When Tim's hook broke the surface, it was empty.
Cooper snorted. "Maybe the fish are smarter than you give them credit for."
"They're fucking fish," said Tim. "They have an Intelligence score of 1. That's dumber than you."
"Hey," said Cooper. "If you're so hungry, why don't you eat my ass?"
"Fishing takes patience," said Dave. "If you didn't reel your line in every five minutes you just might –" Feeling a tug on his line, he sat bolt upright. "See? See what I told you? This is it!"
Tim folded his little arms. "Ten bucks says it's another boot."
Dave let go of the reel. Whatever was on the other end of his line gave it a good tug. "I'll take that action. You ever see a boot do that?" He grabbed the reel and started winding up the line.
The rod stayed bent as Dave frantically reeled, ignoring the bead of sweat that tickled the tip of his nose. He supposed Tim was right to be skeptical. They had hooked a conspicuous amount of junk from the lake floor. Three boots, none of which matched, two rusted helmets, a canteen, and even a broken short sword. But whatever he had this time was alive and fighting for its life. A late breakfast was mere minutes away.
"There it is!" cried Tim, licking his lips and pointing at the spot where Dave's line broke the surface of the water.
Dave had never seen anyone so eager to part with ten dollars he didn't have. His stomach grumbled as he found what Tim had spotted. Sure enough, it was shiny and scaly.
Cooper balled up his fists. "Reel, Dave! Reel like a motherfucker!"
Dave reeled as fast as his thick, stubby arms would allow. He yanked his prize out of the water. It swung toward him. He closed his eyes as it slapped him in the face. The feeling was suspiciously metallic.
"Well shit," said Julian.
Dave opened his eyes. Before him, water drained out of the fingers of a scale mail gloved gauntlet. His stomach voiced its disappointment.
Tim, his arms still folded, looked smugly at Dave. For Tim, apparently, spiteful satisfaction was more nourishing than food.
"It's not a boot," said Dave. "You still owe me ten bucks."
"Well done," said Ravenus, flapping down from a branch of a nearby pine tree. "There's not, by any chance, still a hand in there, is there?"
Dave unhooked the gauntlet and turned it over. Nothing but water spilled out. He tossed it onto the pile of junk they'd caught. "I could have sworn I felt a tug."
Julian skipped a rock on the surface of the lake. "That was just drag. It was a glove full of water. It was bound to feel heavier than it was."
"It just doesn't make sense," said Dave. "Cooper caught a sword. How is that even possible? I could put a sword into a bucket of water and try all day to pull it up with a hook, and I'd come up empty."
About fifty yards away, a fish jumped out of the water.
Cooper picked up a baseball-sized rock and hurled it into the lake. "Fuck you, you scaly bastard!"
"I'm done," said Tim. "I say we pack up our shit and chalk it up to another day of failure."
"Come on," said Dave. "There's still plenty of daylight, and we've still got half a box of worms left."
Tim stomped up to Dave and poked him in the breastplate. "If we don't get moving in the next five minutes, I'm going to eat those fucking worms."
Julian rested his slender hand on Dave's right pauldron. "We did our best. It's time to call it a day."
In a rare moment of bleak desperation, Dave turned beseechingly to Cooper. Cooper farted.
Dave considered threatening to stay behind and keep fishing alone, but they'd almost certainly call his bluff.
"Fine," he said, extra glumly. "Let's go."
Tim led the way back down along the stream that they had followed to get up to the lake. Sure-footed, nimble, and eager to get back to the Whore's Head Inn, he even managed to outpace Cooper's natural Base 40 Movement Speed.
Julian lagged behind with Dave, tossing what worms were left in the box up to Ravenus, who caught them in the air, while Cooper and Tim disappeared into the forest ahead of them.
"Do you think we'll ever get back home?" asked Dave.
"Sure," said Julian. "Like you said, there's plenty of daylight left, and it's always quicker going down than it is going up."
"I meant real home. In our real bodies."
"Oh." Julian frowned. "I don't know. I try not to think about it." He faked a cheerful grin. "Besides, being an elf's not so bad."
Dave kicked a rock into the stream. "Being a dwarf kind of sucks."
"Come on, " said Julian. "Let's catch up to Cooper and Tim before they get themselves –"
"There they are!" said Cooper, only his voice didn't sound like it was coming from the right direction. It sounded more like it was coming from—
"Dave! Julian!" Tim called out. "Up here!" He and Cooper were suspended upside-down, fifty feet in the air.
Julian stepped off the path, looking up at them. "How the hell did you get up –"
"Julian!" cried Tim. "No!"
Pop. Snap. Thwang. Swoosh.
Julian's left foot rocketed into the air, followed by the rest of him. "Shiiiiiiiit!"
"Sir!" cried Ravenus as Julian flew past him.
"Fuck," said Cooper. "Our lives are in Dave's hands."
"Dave!" said Tim. "Don't move!"
Dave was already way ahead of him in that regard. He had no intention of taking a single step in any direction. "What should I do?"
Tim looked at the nearest trees surrounding him. Then he looked up at the rope he was suspended from. "I think we're all hanging from the same tree," he called down to Dave. "Our best option is probably for you to chop it down."
"With what?" asked Dave. "I use a mace. What am I supposed to do? Bludgeon a goddamn tree until it – JESUS CHRIST!" He jumped out of the way a split second before Cooper's greataxe could chop him in half.
"My bad!" Cooper called down. "Hurry up and chop us down. I gotta take a piss, and I don't want it running up in my face."
"Watch where you step!" said Tim.
Tim was the rogue. If he hadn't spotted the snares, Dave didn't stand a chance. The ground between him and the ground was covered in sticks and dead leaves, but appeared to be clear of ropes. He took a cautious step toward the axe.
Crack.
The axe disappeared. Dave jerked his head to the right to discover the blade of the axe embedded in a tree trunk. He looked back to where the axe had been to see what had flung it away. What he saw was whip-like, but much thicker, and covered in shiny, black scales. His eyes followed it around the back of a tree, then up the tree trunk.
"Hello," said a bald, human-ish head atop a snake's body. The skin of its face was as jet-black as the scales on its body. When it smiled at Dave, its forked tongue darted out between white, needle-like teeth.
Dave felt whatever courage he might have had run down his inner thigh. As he took a step backward, the snake-like monster slithered out from behind the tree. Its chest was broad where human pectoral muscles would be, but it had no arms. In their place was a great flattened hood, like a cobra's.
"Sami!" hissed a female serpentine voice.
The creature facing Dave blinked, translucent lids sliding sideways across its eyes. It stopped smiling. "Over here."
A second creature slithered out from behind some underbrush. This one was female, Dave guessed by its voice and smooth, nipple-less black breasts and full lips. She reminded Dave of Angelina Jolie, if Angelina Jolie was a black, bald, half-reptilian vampire.
"Shit," said Cooper from above. "Nagas."
"Don't call them that!" said Julian. "We're in enough trouble as it is!"
"Ow! What the fuck did you hit me for?"
Dave and the two creatures looked up. Cooper and Julian were swinging from their ropes, Cooper trying to punch Julian, and Julian trying to hit Cooper again with his quarterstaff.
"What did you go and set the snares again for, Sami?" asked the female creature. "We haven't even finished the group we caught last week."
"I grow tired of dwarf," said Sami. He looked at Dave. "No offenssse."
Dave swallowed. "None taken."
Sami looked up at his captives. "This is quite the diverssse group."
"Oh stop with the hissing," said the female. "Can't you see you're scaring this poor dwarf half to death?" She slithered over to the tree Dave was meant to chop down and reached her tail up over her head, into its lower branches. Cooper, Julian, and Tim began to descend slowly on their ropes.
"My wife, Trista," Sami said to Dave. "Motherhood has softened her heart."
"Congratulations?" said Dave.
"Dude," said Cooper as he, Julian, and Tim were being lowered to the ground. "You're not getting this. It's not their word. They're actually called nagas. They're based on ancient Hindu mythology or some shit."
Trista looked curiously at Julian, but addressed Cooper. "What does your elf friend have against nagas?"
"I've got nothing against… your kind," said Julian. Touching ground, he loosened his rope and stepped out of it. "I'm just not comfortable using that word. It sounds too much like… Can't I just call you Scary Snake Monster Lady or something?"
"Why certainly," said Trista.
Julian sighed and smiled. "Okay then."
"If you want those to be the last words you ever say."
"Oh."
"Why don't you just call me Trista?"
Julian laughed nervously. "Trista it is."
"And this is my mate, Sami."
Sami grinned at Julian. "You can call me Scary Snake Monster if you want."
Trista brushed aside some strategically placed greenery with her tail to reveal a small cave entrance. "Come on inside and see the naglets."
Julian frowned. "You really call them that?"
If Trista heard him, she ignored him. She slithered toward her cave.
"Dude," Tim whispered to Julian. "If you're going to turn off your Diplomacy skill, maybe you should just shut the fuck up."
Dave caught Tim scanning the scene for an escape route and Cooper sizing up Sami. Sami's grin grew wider, as if he knew exactly what the both of them were thinking and was hoping one of them would try something.
Dave tried hard to remember everything he knew about nagas from playing Caverns and Creatures at home. They didn't use them that often in the game, though, because their characters seldom survived to a high enough level to face one. Come to think of it, that was probably all of the information he needed.
"Let's go, Coop," said Dave.
Cooper broke his gaze from Sami. "Huh?"
"Let's go see the naglets." He spoke with innuendo heavy in his tone.
"Yeah, alright."
Tim nodded and reluctantly followed.
"I'd offer you something to eat," said Trista when they approached the entrance to the cave. "But I'm afraid all we have is dwarf." Sounds of gnawing and sucking echoed out from the darkness behind her.
"Is it cooked?" asked Tim.
Dave glared at him. "Tim!"
"I'm fucking starving," said Tim. "And it's only technically cannibalism for you."
"You are too good for my mate's hospitality?" Sami asked Dave. Dave knew his tone well. He was a bully, just looking for any excuse. The only hope any of them had was Julian's Diplomacy skill, and he was off to a piss poor start with that.
"Sami!" Trista snapped. "They have a different culture than ours." She picked up a pebble with the end of her tail and held it to her lips and whispered the word, "Light." The pebble glowed with soft, white luminescence.
They're spellcasters, Dave thought to himself. A more specific reason not to fuck with them.
"I'm sorry, little halfling," said Trista. "We nagas eat our meat raw." She laid the pebble on the ground and slithered to the left, revealing six tiny nagas – each about a foot and a half long – gnawing and tearing the flesh off a short, thick leg.
Dave took a step back and bumped into Sami, who he hadn't realized was standing right behind him.
Sami placed the end of his leathery tail on Dave's left shoulder and leaned his head over his right. "They grow up so fast."
Trista tapped the tip of her tail on the nearest naglet's head. "This is Tami."
Tami hissed and snapped at her mother's tail.
Trista continued. "And that's Suna, Tasha, Bolo, Mavi, and Poe."
Dave couldn't wrench his gaze away from the half-devoured dwarf leg. He forced out the words, "They're adorable."
Cooper looked at his wrist. "Holy shit. Look at the time."
"You have a lovely family, Trista," said Julian. "Thank you for everything, but we really should be on our way."
"Before you go," said Trista, slithering up to Julian. She put her face right in front of his, so close that Dave feared it might inspire jealousy in Sami. "Could I bother you for a small favor?"
Julian stared back at her, slack-jawed, like he was in a trance. "Anything."
It wasn't enough for these sadistic monsters to just kill them outright. They had to make a game out of it. She was going to ask Julian to choose one of his friends to leave behind. Dave was fucked.
Trista grinned. Her forked tongue flicked out between her horrible white teeth. She broke eye contact with Julian and retreated back to her babies. "Your life changes when you have children."
Dave and Tim exchanged puzzled glances.
"Yes," said Julian.
"Your priorities change," Trista continued. "You have new responsibilities. You can't just go on living carefree like there's no tomorrow."
"Yes," said Julian. He wasn't really flexing his Diplomacy muscles like the situation required.
"I'm sorry," said Cooper. "I'm confused. What the fuck is going on here?"
Sami hissed, sending shivers up Dave's spine.
Tim punched Cooper in the leg. "Shut the fuck up and let her talk."
"A stream runs just outside our home," said Trista.
"Yes," said Julian.
"That's right," said Tim, picking up Julian's slack. "We followed it up to the lake."
"We made our home here for that very reason," said Trista. "Wandering travelers ensured us a steady supply of food and entertainment, which was just fine when it was only Sami and myself. There is little in the forest which could threaten us. But, like any mother, I fear for my children's sake. I want them to be able to play outside without fear of being killed. There's far too much foot traffic along that stream. It fills me with anxiety."
"Yes," said Julian.
Dave wished he could walk over and slap Julian, but he was frozen in place with fear.
"What would you like us to do about it?" asked Tim.
Trista looked at Tim with sad, grateful eyes. "If it's not too much of a bother, we'd like you to travel back up to the lake and divert the course of the stream."
"Is that all?" said Cooper, his voice heavy with relief. "Naga please. We are on that shit."
"Wonderful!" Trista smiled in a way that might have looked perky if her mouth wasn't bristling with nightmare fuel. "Stop by again anytime!"
Julian clapped his hands together. "Daylight's a-wastin'. Let's get moving."
Dave willed up the courage to speak. "So we can just go then?"
Sami slithered around him and joined his family. "Of course. You can't very well divert the course of a stream from here, now can you?"
Julian walked casually out of the cave. Tim and Cooper backed out more cautiously.
Sami and Trista stared down at Dave. He took a tentative step backwards. When they failed to jump on him and tear his face off, he took another. With his third step, he turned around and waddled completely out of the cave to join his friends on the other side of the camouflaging greenery.
"Way to step up to the plate," Cooper said to Tim as the four of them made their way back to the stream. "You bought us four tickets to the fuck out of there. Stupid nagas."
Julian winced. "I really wish you'd stop saying things like that."
"And I wish you would have said something other than Yes. Yes. Yes," said Tim. "You sounded like a goddamn robot. What the hell was that all about?"
"I guess I just choked," said Julian. "They were scary."
Cooper snorted. "The way she was looking at you, I was sure she was going to make you do weird snake sex things with her in front of her husband."
"Ew," said Julian. "And her kids?"
"Who knows what kind of freaky shit nagas are into?"
Julian sighed. "Look. I understand that's what they're called, but it still sounds really wrong when you say it."
"Hey," said Cooper. "Where are you going?"
Dave wanted nothing more than to put as much distance between himself and Sami as possible, and thus found himself in the rare position of leading the party when they reached the stream. He stopped and turned around. While he, Tim, and Cooper had turned downstream, Julian was headed back up the hill.
Julian stared back at the rest of them like they were aliens. "I'm going back up to the lake."
"What the fuck for?"
Julian furrowed his eyebrows as he stared at Cooper. He then looked at Tim and Dave. The four spent a moment in a stalemate of confusion.
"Don't you remember? We're supposed to divert the stream."
"Fuck that," said Cooper. "We're in the clear. Let's go get some food before we have to eat Dave."
Dave was moderately certain that Cooper was joking, but still shivered at the memory of naglets tearing apart a dwarf leg.
"But we said we were going to."
"And if they'd asked, I would have said that I wasn't going to jerk off to Trista's big snake titties later on, but that doesn't make it fucking true."
"Seriously," said Tim. "Let's just remember to never come up this hill again, and we should be okay."
Julian put his hands on his hips and glared down at them. "Do your words mean nothing? Dave?"
Dave frowned. "I didn't actually say any words."
"Tim?"
"We were afraid for our lives," said Tim. "We're not honor bound to keep promises made under duress."
"Cooper?"
Cooper looked down at his loincloth, then back up at Julian. "I, too, was underdressed."
Julian shook his head. "Shame on all of you." He turned around and began stomping his way upstream.
"What the fuck, man?" Cooper called out after him. "Is this some kind of white guilt thing?"
"Screw you, Cooper!" Julian called back without turning around. "Have fun jerking off!"
"I will!"
Tim threw his hands in the air. "What kind of bullshit was that?"
"Okay, you caught me," said Cooper. "I was bluffing. I won't be able to concentrate properly while Julian's out here alone."
"No," said Tim. "I meant when did Julian turn into such a sanctimonious little shit?"
Dave stroked his beard. "He didn't." The pieces were beginning to fall into place inside his head.
"Were you not paying attention just now?"
"He's not honor bound," said Dave. "He's spellbound."
"What are you talking about?"
"Trista wasn't getting all up in his face to make sexy-eyes at him. She was casting a spell on him."
"How do you know?"
"It just makes sense. That's why he kept saying yes to everything she said. That's why they just let us up and leave. They knew the rest of us would ditch them the first chance we got, but Julian would move that stream or die trying. It's a Quest spell. Tim, you used it when we were playing C&C back at the Chicken Hut last Christmas. Remember when you made the town sheriff piss the lyrics to Jingle Bells in the snow?"
Tim grinned. "That asshole was drunk off his tits for a week."
Dave sighed. "I guess there's only one thing we can do."
"Club him over the head and drag him back to town?" suggested Cooper.
"I was thinking more along the lines of helping him divert the stream."
"That's another valid option."
"Fuck," said Tim. "Let's go and get this over with."
Dave, Cooper, and Tim trudged back up the hill until they found Julian, soaking wet from the waist down, struggling to carry a rock as big as his head.
"What do you think you're doing?" asked Dave.
Kersplunk. Julian dropped the rock into the stream at a point just before it widened into the lake. He didn't even give them a glance as he searched the bank for another rock. "I'm doing just what I said I was going to do."
Ravenus provided what little contribution to the cause that he could, flying over the stream and dropping pebbles.
Tim rolled his eyes.
"I know," said Dave. "We're here to help you."
"Wait, what?" said Cooper. "When did my plan get taken off the table?"
"More specifically," Dave continued. "What are you doing?"
Julian stopped what he was doing and turned to face him. "I'm damming up the stream."
"That's a terrible idea."
Julian wagged his finger at Dave. "If you thought you were going to come up here and talk me out of this, you wasted a trip. Integrity means something to me. Tomorrow I'll look at myself in the mirror and not be ashamed of the face looking back at me."
Tim cupped his hand over the side of his mouth. "Cooper's plan is starting to grow on me."
"I'm not trying to talk you out of it," said Dave. "I just think you're going about it the wrong way."
Julian wiped the sweat from his brow with his palm and sat on the bank. "I'm listening."
Ravenus fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. "Thank heavens!" he said between labored breaths.
"You can throw all the rocks you want in there," said Dave. "The water's just going to go around them and work its way back to the stream long before it gets to the naga cave. It's got to go somewhere, right?"
"Yeah," said Julian. "So what are you suggesting?"
"I'm suggesting that, before you try to stop the water flowing through here, you give it somewhere else to go."
Julian nodded. "That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for coming back."
Dave willed himself to ignore the rumble in his stomach. "Don't mention it." Not recalling any great locations to the right of the stream where they had been fishing, he started walking clockwise along the edge of the lake. "We'll want to find a spot a good distance from here, so that the water doesn't just work its way back into the stream bed."
Julian sent Ravenus off to go scavenge, and then he, Tim, and Cooper followed Dave for a good forty-five minutes. Dave stopped several times to assess potential locations for a new stream, but nothing jumped out at him as being terribly convenient. Either the ground didn't slope the right way, or there was a big tree they'd have to uproot, or they'd have to dig through solid rock. Dave had packed for fishing that morning, not for creating and destroying ecosystems.
And then he saw it. It was like Mother Nature herself was lying naked on a bed and begging to get fucked. A perfect storm of natural anomalies. A single boulder, about as big as a cow, was all that stood between the water and a sheer, thirty foot drop in elevation. For how many centuries had this unlikely chunk of stone denied the creatures which inhabited this hilly forest the beauty of another small waterfall?
Dave placed his palm on the boulder. "It's perfect."
Cooper frowned. "What am I looking at?"
Dave hopped down into the shallow water. "If we can push this boulder off the ledge, our problems are solved! Hell, we probably won't even need to go back and dam the other stream." He leaned his shoulder into the stone and pushed with his legs. It didn't budge. "Cooper? A little help?"
Cooper jumped into the water. He and Dave shoved as hard as they could, but to no avail.
"Maybe you should try pulling instead of pushing," suggested Tim.
Julian tugged at his long ears. "What difference would that make?"
"Objects are easier to pull than they are to push," said Tim. "It's basic physics. Why do you think you put a horse in front of a wagon, rather than behind?"
"Umm," said Cooper. He abandoned his effort against the boulder and looked up at Tim. "So it can see where the fuck it's going?"
"Remind me," said Tim. "Who's got the highest Intelligence score here?"
"Well let me explain some basic fucking physics to you, Professor. Even if I could climb over that rock, secure a grip on it, and pull it free, that leaves me with a thirty foot free fall, hugging a goddamn boulder."
"Who said I was talking about you?"
"No?" said Cooper. "In that case, sweet. Dave, I'll push. You pull."
Dave looked at Tim. "What?"
Tim raked his fingers through his curly hair. "Jesus Christ. I'm talking about a horse!" He pulled a coil of rope out of his bag. "Julian climbs down there and summons a horse. We tie one end of the rope to the horse and the other end to the boulder. Horse pulls. We push. Problem solved. We all go back to town and get some fucking dinner."
Julian rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It could work."
Tim raised his hands out to his sides. "Any objections?"
Dave shrugged. Cooper farted.
"Okay then. Julian, work your magic."
Julian hopped and skidded down the side of the hill where it wasn't quite as steep while Tim got busy tying an adjustable knot on one end of his rope.
"Horse!" said Julian from down below.
Dave peeked over the edge. Sure enough, Julian was combing his fingers through the mane of a sturdy-looking white horse.
"Here," said Tim, tossing the looped end of his rope to Cooper. "Loop this around the rock, and throw the other end down to Julian.
Cooper did as he was told.
Julian caught the loose end. "It's too short!"
"What are you talking about?" Cooper shouted down at him. "You're holding it!"
"But I don't have enough rope to tie it to the horse."
"Shit," said Tim. "I probably should have tested the rope length before I had him go down there and summon the horse."
"Now what are we going to do?" asked Dave.
Cooper leaned over the edge and looked down. "I say we eat the horse."
Tim groaned and rubbed his belly. "Don't even talk about that."
"What's wrong with that?" asked Cooper. "Lots of cultures eat horse meat."
"Hey, I'm with you, man. I would murder a pile of horse steaks right now. That's not the problem."
"So what then?"
Tim glared up at Cooper. "Come on, man! You know those magical horses disappear as soon as they die!"
"That's right," said Cooper. "I've considered that. But how much of it do you think we could eat without actually killing it?"
Tim bit his lower lip and peeked down over the boulder.
"Tim!" said Dave. "Tell me you're not actually considering this."
"I'm so fucking hungry," said Tim.
"I'm hungry, too," said Dave. "But come on, man. You want to rip the flesh off of a living, breathing creature? That's fucking barbaric is what that is."
Tim looked at Dave with wide eyes. "That's it!"
"Oh shit, what?" Dave was not comforted by Tim's sudden manic grin.
"Cooper!" cried Tim. "You big fucking retard!" He punched Cooper in the leg.
"Hey, man," said Cooper. "What the fuck?"
"Use your Barbarian Rage!"
"Oh." Cooper pursed his big lips. "Yeah, I could do that." He stood up. "Take a step back, Dave."
Dave hurried out of Cooper's way.
"Hey guys," said Julian, scrambling back up the slope. "Tim got me thinking about physics. What if we made some levers out of –"
"I'M REALLY ANGRY!" Cooper's muscles ballooned out like time-lapse video of baking bread.
Julian laughed and rolled his eyes. "Doh! Why didn't we think of that before? It could have saved me a –" His smile suddenly vanished. "Wait, Cooper! No!"
Cooper roared like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park as he hugged the bottom of the boulder and pushed up with his legs. Even with the Strength bonus from his Barbarian Rage, he struggled to move the big stone. But he kept roaring, and the boulder finally broke free. Once he had it dislodged, the weight of an entire lake's worth of water helped him push it over the edge.
Dave leaned over to watch the boulder fall, spotted Julian's horse grazing just below, and turned his head away just in time to hear, but not see, the crash. The lack of accompanying horse screams suggested that at least it went quickly.
"Goddammit, Cooper," said Julian.
"What?" asked Cooper, deflating to his normal form as the Barbarian Rage ceased.
"You killed my horse."
"Oh shit. My bad."
Water rushed out of the breach like a god taking a piss after having held it in during a long bus ride. Once the lake reached an equilibrium, the force of the water would likely subside, but for now—
"FISH!" cried Julian, pointing down to the water.
Try as they may, the fish which got caught too close to the edge of the lake couldn't outswim the sudden current. Cooper immediately squatted down and began scooping them out of the water just before they made it to the breach.
Julian, Dave, and Tim waited eagerly to catch whatever Cooper flung from the water. Julian caught a nice, fat, shiny pink fish. It was eyeless, and had tentacles growing out of its face. It looked delicious.
Dave caught a blue fish with its pectoral fins on the bottom.
Tim caught a naked green woman.
"JESUS!" screamed Tim, flailing his arms and legs about wildly. "GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME!"
Dave stepped back and caught himself just short of falling off the ledge. The fish, flopping and twisting out of Dave's grasp, wasn't so lucky.
Tim's Catch-of-the-Day slapped him in the face with her green, webbed hand before rolling off him. "How dare you toss me around like an oyster shell!"
"That fucking hurt," said Tim, rubbing his red cheek.
The woman's hair was a darker shade of green than her skin, and hung down like seaweed to cover her small breasts. The rage in her aquamarine eyes turned to fear as she backed away, finding herself outnumbered four to one.
"We didn't mean you any harm," said Julian. "Actually, Cooper here probably just saved your life." He nodded at the water rushing out of the breach, then stared curiously at the woman. "What are you? Some kind of sea-elf?"
"I'm a nixie."
"A nixie?"
"They're like pixies," Tim explained. "But without –"
"Kim Deal?"
"…wings."
The nixie glared at Tim. "That may be the most insulting oversimplification of our kind that I've ever heard. Who are you people? What do you want? Why did you –" She backed into their bags and fishing rods. "You're the fishermen from earlier this morning, aren't you?" Her tone was accusatory.
So that was the reason they couldn't catch anything. These people must have a special relationship with the fish in the lake. Dave whispered to Julian, "Surrender your fish."
"Huh?" Julian looked down at the fish in his hands. "Oh, okay." He knelt before the nixie and held up the squirming fish. "Please accept our humble apologies."
"Very well," she said, cautiously accepting Julian's offering. Gripping the fish firmly by face and tail, she savagely bit into its side, tearing away a large chunk of flesh. Blood dripped from her mouth as she chewed.
Dave frowned. "You eat fish?"
The nixie stared quizzically at Dave while she chewed. After she swallowed she said, "We live in a lake. What do you expect us to eat?"
Dave felt blood rush to his face, both from the implied stupidity of his question, and from the fact that he'd just given away their only food for no reason.
Tim was glaring at him, and he could sense Cooper's eyes burning a hole in his back as well.
"I just thought maybe the fish were your friends or something."
The nixie held up her dead fish so that she was staring it in the face. "Hello, Mr. Fish. Tell me about yourself. Do you have a family?"
She pinched the sides of the fish's mouth so that its lips moved, and spoke in a deeper voice. "Well, Lana. I don't really know, on account of I'm a fish. I suppose if I did have a family, I'd probably try to eat them, because I'm a stupid fish."
Dave folded his arms. "You've made your point."
"Oh dear," said the nixie, Lana, to her fish. "I don't think I could be friends with someone who would eat their own children."
"That's okay, Lana," she responded in her fish voice. "I don't have the emotional capacity for friendship anyway, because I'm a godsdamned fish."
Tim grinned. "I like her. She's fun."
Dave felt he'd suffered enough ridicule for one day. "So what have you got against fishermen?"
"Aside from the fact that they come here specifically to steal our food?" said Lana. "Well there's also the matter of the garbage they dump in the lake."
"That was you then!" said Tim. "You were the ones who put all those boots and helmets and shit on our hooks!"
Lana flashed him a quick grin before continuing. "And sometimes, just sometimes, a group of particularly witless bastards will up and try to destroy our home outright." She was staring at the water rushing out of the breach.
"Ummm…" said Cooper. "Sorry about that."
"That wasn't our fault," said Dave. "The nagas made us do it."
Lana raised an eyebrow. "Sami and Trista? Why would they want you to do that?"
"They wanted us to dry up the stream running by their cave to keep travelers away from their children."
Lana's eyes lit up. "Trista had her babies? That's wonderful! I'll have to send her some fish."
"You're friends with nagas?" asked Cooper.
"Jesus, Cooper!" said Julian. "Can you hear yourself?"
"Not friends, exactly," said Lana. "But we appreciate them keeping travelers away from our lake."
Images of the dwarf leg in the naga cave flashed in Dave's mind. "You are aware of how they do that, right?"
"Uh-oh," said Lana, her eyes focused on something beyond Dave.
"What is the meaning of this?" demanded a booming male voice from the direction Lana was looking.
Dave turned around. Trotting up the slope was a creature that Dave recognized from fantasy literature other than Caverns and Creatures. The creature's lower half resembled the body of a horse, but it had the upper body of a muscular, hairy man. A centaur. In his hands he carried a large, wooden spear. The pristine steel tip glistened in the sunlight, but the wood just beneath it was stained brown, suggesting he was no stranger to its use.
"Who's that?" asked Julian as the centaur approached.
Tim rolled his eyes at having to explain yet another fantasy creature to Julian. "It's a centaur. Half man, half horse."
"How dare you, insolent halfling!" shouted the centaur, thrusting the end of his spear about a quarter inch from Tim's nose. "Retract your words at once!"
Tim dropped to his knees. "I retract! I retract!"
The centaur likewise retracted his spear. "I am no part man, no part horse. I am all centaur. We are a proud and noble race, and I will not have our name besmirched by the likes of a sniveling halfling coward like yourself."
"You should have heard what he had to say about nixies," said Lana.
"For the record," said Julian. "I know what a centaur is. I read Harry Potter." He paused to raise his eyebrows smugly at Tim, still on his knees. "I asked who this was, not what."
"Gentlemen," said Lana. "This is Gallus. Gallus, I haven't actually had the time to learn their names yet. I imagine you're here about the breach in the wall."
"My rutabagas are flooding! I demand an explanation!"
"You'll probably want to talk to Finn. I'll be right back. Talk amongst yourselves."
"Huh?" said Dave. "Don't leave us alone with…" When he turned to look at Lana, she had already disappeared into the lake. "Shit."
The centaur, Gallus, eyed the four of them with obvious distaste. If normal centaurs were supposed to be comparable in size to their human and equine counterparts, he was a large specimen indeed. He stood a full head taller than Cooper even, and was nearly as broad across the shoulders. His chest was crisscrossed with scars, some of which were clearly earned in battle. But a row of smaller scars across the top right of his chest were too uniform to have not been put there intentionally. Dave guessed they were trophies he'd been awarded for some sort of tribal victories.
Julian bowed his head slightly. "I'm Julian. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Gallus stood tall and proud, his wild mane swaying in the breeze. He sniffed the air. "And the one who smells of fresh urine?"
Dave, Tim, and Cooper blurted out their own names simultaneously.
"Are you the ones responsible for the breech in our forefathers' dam?"
In spite of his inexplicable knowledge of stonemasonry, Dave had assumed the wall keeping this lake in was a product of nature. He was impressed.
"You mean to tell me this was man made?"
Gallus's spear point was suddenly in Dave's face.
"Man had no part in its construction. We are centaurs, a fact I encourage you not to forget a third time. Now did you or did you not remove the crown stone from atop the dam?"
"Not me personally," Dave whimpered.
"Who then?" demanded Gallus. "Who is responsible?"
"None of them are," said a voice from behind the centaur. Almost as high in pitch as Lana's, this voice sounded older and more wizened.
Gallus turned around. "Finnean." He addressed the nixie accompanying Lana out of the lake with a respect that Dave guessed was formally expected, if not entirely sincere.
Lana escorted Finnean to a rock where he sat down. His skin was a paler shade of green than hers, and hung loosely on his old nixie bones. His seaweed-like hair was long in the back, but absent on top of his head.
"Lana has told me the whole story, as it was related to her," said the old nixie. "These young men cannot be held accountable for their actions. They were coerced by the nagas."
"That is no excuse!" said Gallus. He turned his back to Finnean and faced Dave. "Your reasons are not important to me. You are responsible for your own actions, and must live with the consequences of those actions."
It was beginning to feel like being back in middle school, getting a lecture from another kid's dad, where you were only going to listen to a little more of it before you just gave him the finger and ran away laughing. It didn't help that Lana was standing behind Finnean the whole time moving her dead fish's mouth in time with Gallus's words. Cooper and Tim were trying to maintain their serious faces, but neither of them were doing a very good job of it.
"Now I'm going to ask you one more time," Gallus continued.
Lana shook the fish slightly to make its mouth tentacles jiggle when it talked. Cooper couldn't contain it anymore. He snorted and farted at the same time.
Gallus looked back at Lana, who quickly put the fish behind her back and smiled innocently. He turned to face Cooper. "Who is responsible?"
"Like Mr. Finnean said," Julian spoke up. "The nagas –"
"The nagas didn't break our dam!" Gallus shouted. "Once I have dealt with you, I shall deal with the nagas. But until then, I must –"
"And just how do you sssuppose you'll deal with the nagas?" Sami slithered up along the edge of the lake.
Dave could only think of one explanation to account for his timing. He'd noticed the reduction of water flowing in his stream, and that concluded the usefulness he had for the four of them. He's here to hunt.
Sami grinned at Dave, sending a wave of shivers down his spine. Was the naga reading his mind?
Trying to remain casual and not move his lips, Dave spoke quietly enough so that hopefully only Julian would be able to hear him. "We have to get out of here. Summon some hor-"
A ray of darkness shot out of the nagas tail, hitting Julian squarely in the chest.
"Fuck!" shouted Cooper, grabbing his greataxe from off his back and stepping in front of Julian.
Dave supposed that confirmed the naga's mind reading ability. "Are you okay?"
Julian patted his chest. He looked startled, but unhurt. "I don't feel any different."
"These are my prisoners, naga!" said Gallus. "And if their story is true, you have your own crimes to answer for."
"Sssunflowers will bloom in the Abyss before I answer to a horse-man."
Gallus brandished his spear at the naga. He was positively shaking with rage. "You take that back, by the gods, or I'll –"
"You'll what?" said Sami. "You whinny like a foal."
"You filthy, stinking naga!"
"Whoahohohoho!" said Julian. "Come on, man. No need for that."
Tim and Cooper glared at him.
Julian raised his hands apologetically. "I know, I know. I'm sorry. It just still sounds wrong to me. The seed was planted, and I… Carry on with what you were doing."
Gallus stomped his hooves like he was warming up for a run. "I've sent greater foes than you to the Abyss, naga. Prepare yourself!"
Sami bared his teeth and flicked his tongue. His dark hood expanded. He pointed the tip of his tail at Gallus and fired a bolt of purple lightning.
Seemingly ready for just such an attack, Gallus deftly leaped out of the way. The lightning flew harmlessly past him and struck the dam next to the breach. Moss-covered stones exploded, revealing them for the façade they were. Dave took half a second to appreciate the exposed masonry.
Gallus, too, glanced back at the dam. "My wall!" he cried. "My rutabagas!" The ground shook as he charged at Sami.
Sami coiled up and sprang out of the way just in time to miss the full force of Gallus's charge, but the spear sliced a six inch gash into his underbelly, spilling a trickle of black blood. He hissed in pain.
As Gallus slowed and turned around for a second charge, Sami turned tail and slithered hurriedly toward the wall. Was he retreating?
"Stand your ground and fight, craven naga!" Gallus shouted. "I can outrun you on two hooves!"
Having reached the edge of the lake next to the wall, Sami turned around and flashed a toothy grin at Gallus. His tail crackled with purple lightning.
"No!" cried Gallus, breaking into full gallop toward Sami.
Sami fired his lightning directly at the wall, widening the breach another four inches as the stonework exploded into coarse dust.
"Well that's just mean," said Julian. He was right. Sami was either trying to demonstrate how little a threat he took Gallus for, or he just cared more about being cruel than he did for his own survival. Either way, it was a dick move.
"What happened to the nixies?" asked Tim. Dave glanced at where he had last seen Lana and Finnean. Sure enough, they had disappeared. It was probably the wisest course of action.
Sami coiled up and grinned as Gallus approached, slowing down so as not to charge right over the edge of the dam. When Sami tried to spring over his head again, Gallus reared up on his hind legs and plunged the spear deep into the naga's chest.
Sami screamed in pain, and probably no small amount of surprise. Gallus obviously had quite a few fighter levels on him.
"Vile beast!" Gallus shouted as he drove the impaled naga down into the water. "I damn you to the depths!"
Sami's tail flailed about wildly as Gallus held his spear firm, pinning him under the water.
The naga's panic eventually ceded way to reason, and his tail coiled around Gallus's humanlike torso and horselike abdomen. Gallus grunted as Sami squeezed him, but he continued to hold his ground. The battle appeared to be at its unlikely conclusion when Sami pulled out one last surprise.
An inky black stinger emerged from the end of the naga's tail, and he plunged it into Gallus's rear. Gallus howled in pain, losing his grip on the spear. Sami's head emerged from the water. His gasps for air were interrupted by Gallus repeatedly punching him in the face.
Sami pulled his stinger out of Gallus's side and relinquished his hold on the centaur. Gallus hobbled backward on shaky horse legs while Sami stayed in the lake to catch his breath, black blood still leaking from his chest wound. The flowing water posed little danger to him, as he was too large to fit through the breach. The combatants stood panting, facing each other. Tired, haggard, and bleeding as they were, both appeared ready to react if the other should strike, but neither of them seemed to be in any great hurry to make the first move.
"Should we, um… help?" asked Julian.
"Which one?" said Tim. "I'm pretty sure they both want to kill us."
"We should get out of here while we have the chance," said Dave. "Julian?"
"Right," said Julian. "I'm on it." He pointed at the ground in front of him. "Horse!" A small squirt of glowing sparkles spat out of his finger, but no horse appeared.
"I warned you, elf!" shouted Gallus, turning around to face Julian.
Dave tried to stay focused on the problem at hand. Why didn't Julian's spell work? Sami must have cast some magic-nullifying spell on him.
"I will not be mocked!" Gallus continued shouting at Julian. "My people are an ancient and proud race! We have dwelled in this forest for countless gener—"
"Holy fucking shit!" said Cooper.
Dave looked up. Sami stood triumphant over Gallus, whose head was conspicuously absent from atop his neck.
Crimson blood gurgled out of the centaur's neck like a science fair volcano. His wobbly horse legs buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, spilling blood into the lake.
"Damn," said Cooper, shaking his head. "That's the wrong naga to fuck with."
Julian jabbed Cooper in the side with his quarterstaff. "Don't even try to tell me that one wasn't on purpose."
Sami spit Gallus's head out next to his body. "Thank you, elf." He smiled, showing off his blood-soaked teeth. "Who's next?"
"What should we do?" asked Julian.
"We could ask him to go halfsies on the centaur," suggested Cooper. "Would it be weird if we ate the horse half?"
"Dude," said Tim. "He's going to kill us. We need to run."
"No," Dave said flatly. That naga could outpace any of them. He wanted them to run, just for the thrill of the chase. Dave's stubby dwarf legs didn't have much of a chase to offer. He repeated the phrase 'Kill naga' in his mind to block the telepathic transmission of the last ditch idea that had just occurred to him. "Stay here. I've got this." Holding his mace firmly with both hands, he charged toward the naga.
"Dave!" Cooper called after him. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"BWAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Kill naga. Kill naga. Kill naga.
Sami looked genuinely perplexed as Dave waddled huriedly toward him.
"BWAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Kill naga. Kill naga. Kill naga.
Sami's malicious grin faltered as he broke into a yawn.
He was almost there. Kill naga. Kill naga. Kill naga. Sami backed up a couple of feet; a nice extra bit of cruelty. He didn't want to tear Dave's head off right away. It would be more fun to watch him sink and drown in his armor. Kill naga. Kill naga. Kill naga. Just keep it going a little… bit… longer… "BWAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Kill naga. Kill naga. Destroy wall.
"Huh?" said Sami as Dave changed his course.
Just as Dave had expected, the naga's lightning bolts had severely weakened the mortar of the ancient masonry. The top of the dam was days, if not hours, away from crumbling apart. He'd just give it a little help.
"No!" cried Sami. He tried to coil, but he was a lot less bouncy in the water.
Dave's dwarven knowledge of masonry, which he was only now discovering he had, allowed him to judge where the most stable part of the wall was for him to stand on, and which part of the wall was best to strike in order to help the water destroy the largest part of it. Gripping his mace firmly with both hands, he struck a particular block of exposed stone that he was certain none of his friends would have seen any special structural importance in.
The result was both immediate and catastrophic. A solid square meter of wall disintegrated into individual blocks and collapsed under the enormous pressure of the lake water, which gushed out with renewed fervor, dragging a helpless Sami over the edge.
The breach was wide enough now that the water no longer shot horizontally out of it, but rather flowed straight down along what was left of the dam. It was likely that Sami survived the initial fall, but Dave didn't like his odds against the loosening blocks of stone that continued to rain down on top of him.
The stone beneath his feet started to wobble, reminding Dave that he was standing on a collapsing dam. Shit! Time slowed down as he pivoted around, trying to save himself. He wasn't going to make it. He didn't need his dwarven knowledge of stonemasonry to tell him he was fucked, but he had it just the same, and it only reinforced his conclusion. Dave needed a miracle, and in his experience, miracles were just – right above his head?
He didn't question the loop of rope sailing through the air toward him. He just reached for it, catching it below the knot in his left hand. As the stone he had been standing on fell away, the rope tightened around the leopard fur of his forearm. It hurt like a motherfucker.
"Fuck, you're heavy!" said Cooper as Dave did his best to avoid scraping his face against stone and jagged mortar.
When he crawled up onto solid, stable land, Cooper, Tim, and Julian were right there to greet him.
Dave loosened the rope around his arm and tried to wring out some of the burn. "How did you guys get here so fast?"
"We were walking behind you," said Julian.
"You're kinda slow," added Tim.
Cooper scratched his balls under his loincloth. "That was seriously the most piss-poor battle charge I've ever seen. You should be embarrassed by that."
"I only have a base 20 Movement Speed," Dave explained. "And I can't run while I'm wearing my –"
"Ravenus!" shouted Julian. He ran off toward Gallus's dead body, where Ravenus was greedily slurping back one of the dead centaur's eyes. "Stop that! It's disrespectful."
Ravenus swallowed what he already had in his beak. "I'm very sorry, sir. You can have the other one, if you like."
"That's not what I meant. I just don't think –"
"Fuck it," said Cooper. "We're all starving. Let the bird eat. I'm still open to thoughts about chopping up this dude's bottom half. Anyone with me?"
"That would be… inadvisable," said Finnean as Lana escorted him slowly toward the party. Lana had a satchel over her shoulder. It was made of kelp and adorned with shells and fish scales.
"Oh, hey," said Dave. He looked back at the dam. The breech had grown to about three meters wide. "Umm… sorry about your lake."
"Don't be," said Lana cheerfully. "It's supposed to be down there. The centaurs stole that land from us over a century ago."
"Aren't they going to be pissed at you?"
Lana put her webbed hands up defensively. "Hey, we weren't even here."
Tim scowled at her. "Yeah, we noticed that."
"So what are you going to tell them?" asked Dave.
Lana shrugged. "We'll blame it on the nagas."
Cooper folded his arms and shook his head. "Brothas can't catch a break!"
Julian elbowed him in the side. "Knock it off."
"Still," said Finnean. "It would be prudent for you to leave this place before the other centaurs show up."
Dave didn't need to be told twice. "Well, thank you for everything. Good luck."
"I got you something," said Lana. She pulled a fat green fish out of her satchel and tossed it to Dave. It was slippery and flapping, and a little heavier than he expected, but Dave managed to hang onto it.
"Oh Lana, you don't know how much –" Dave had an idea. He held the fish up, pinched the sides of its mouth, and did his best Lana-fish impersonation. "Thank you, Lana!"
Instead of a laugh, his effort earned him a sympathetic smile from Lana and narrow-eyed puzzlement from Finnean.
Dave decided to have one more try. He pinched the fish's lips again. "Well, I guess I'll see you lake-er!"
Lana looked away, her pale green skin turning pink in the face. "I, um… I just remembered. I've got a… thing." She turned around and dove into the lake.
Noticing that none of his friends would make eye contact with him either, Dave lowered his fish.
"Sorry Dave," said Julian. "It's just not as funny when the fish is actually gasping for its life."
"See you lake-er?" said Tim. "Jesus, Dave. Was that even a joke?"
Cooper cradled his head in his hands. "Ugh… I feel like my brain just got kicked in the nuts."
Dave tucked the fish under his arm. "You guys can all go to hell. I'm not sharing this." He turned around and started the long walk back to Cardinia.
He ate the fish raw on his way back to town, but took little comfort in his spiteful selfishness, as his friends walked behind him the entire time, laughing and making water-and-fish-related puns, every one of them better than his. |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Elf Inflicted | Tim sucked the froth off the top of his beer glass, savoring the evening's first hint of alcohol. Soon he would be blissfully oblivious to everything in this shitty, shitty game world.
"It's nice to get out of the Whore's Head every now and again," said Julian, presumably just to fill the silence. The tips of his long ears were already pink from his first sip of beer.
Dave downed a shot of stonepiss. "Yeah, real nice. Drinking in this dingy tavern is so much better than drinking in the dingy tavern we usually drink at."
Tim stared into his beer. Julian had made a vacuously cheerful remark. Dave had bitched about something. All that was missing now was—
"Hey Dave," said Cooper, trying to flick a half-orc booger at him. It was too sticky, and he eventually gave up and licked it off his finger. "Your mom's a whore."
Dave rolled his beady dwarf eyes. "Not really your best effort."
"That's what a hundred guys who might be your dad said."
Dave puffed his bearded cheeks and exhaled. "Seriously, what are we doing here? There's literally no difference between this place and the Whore's Head, except that we can drink for free there."
It was Tim's idea to come out, so he was expected to answer. "I can rest my brain here. It's not so noisy."
"It's plenty noisy in here."
Dave wasn't technically wrong. The lizard people at the next table were particularly rowdy, slurping their drinks and chatting loudly in their clicky reptilian language.
"Oh," Dave continued, looking at the lizard people. "And everyone at the Whore's Head speaks English."
Tim gulped back some beer and licked away his frothy mustache. "And that's why we're here."
"You lost me."
"I'm so sick and tired of listening to everyone. Yeah, it's noisy in here, but everybody's speaking a different language that I don't understand. Back there it's all about how they miss their shitty lives back in the real world, or Doctor Who quotes."
Dave pouted. "I like Doctor Who."
"Bullshit," said Cooper. "Nobody likes Doctor Who. Everyone just watches it for geek cred. It's like going to church for nerds."
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," said Dave. "Have you ever even watched an episode?"
"Fuck no."
"Then how do you know you don't like it?"
"Because I'm not retarded."
"Easy, Coop," said Tim. "You're kind of on the fence there."
"Fuck you nerds," said Cooper, standing up. "I'm going outside to take a shit."
"Did everyone catch that?" said Julian as the lizard people stopped their conversation to look up at Cooper. "Oh good. Thanks for the update, Cooper. Don't forget to wipe."
Cooper gave the rest of them a middle finger as he walked out of the tavern.
"Greetings," said a cloaked figure stepping behind Cooper's empty chair. He wore a neatly trimmed blond goatee, and his icy blue eyes shone out from the shadow of his hood.
Julian smiled up at him. "Hi there!"
Dave let out a heavy sigh. "Not interested."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Dave!" said Julian. "You're being rude."
Dave looked up at the stranger. "Let me guess. You've got some sort of quest you'd like us to go on."
The man looked baffled. "Well, yes but –"
"You'd go yourself, but it's dangerous, and you have a wife and a sick child to think of."
"That's true, but –"
"But you promise to make it worth our while."
"Of course, but how do you –"
"This is Caverns and Creatures," said Dave. "We're in a tavern, and you're a mysterious stranger. That's how the game works."
"You speak in riddles, dwarf."
Tim had to hand it to Dave. He'd made an astute observation which would probably save them all a big headache. It was time to end this conversation.
Tim cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, sir. My friend is right. We've had a long day, and we really don't want anything more than a quiet drink."
The stranger pulled back his hood, revealing some of the cleanest blond hair Tim had yet seen in Cardinia. He looked like a Sunday school picture of Jesus. "If peace and intoxication are what you desire, these things I can provide. I have a private room in the back of the tavern, and I thought you might be interested in a finer vintage than the goblin piss you're drinking now."
Tim raised his glass and his eyebrows. "Listen, buddy. This is no goblin piss. Believe me. I know. I've …" He suddenly became aware of everyone staring at him. "…said too much, haven't I?"
"Um…" Julian broke the awkward silence that followed. "You said something about good booze?"
Dave glared at him. "Julian, no!"
The stranger smiled down at Julian. "All I ask is for you to hear my tale."
Dave shook his head.
Julian raised a reassuring hand to Dave and looked up at the stranger. "What if we tell you up front that there is no way we will do whatever it is you want us to do?"
"If that is your choice, so be it."
"I mean really," Julian continued. "No matter how heartbreaking the sob story you've got for us, we're just going to drink your booze, listen to what you have to say, and be on our way."
"I probably won't even listen," added Tim. He liked where Julian was going with this, and hoped his superfluous display of callousness might help convince Dave.
Dave frowned so hard that his head trembled. "I don't like this."
"I seek only to unburden myself of my woeful tale," said the stranger. "I expect nothing from you but a sympathetic ear, even if your sympathy is not genuine."
Tim looked up at the stranger. "Even if all you need us to do is run down to the market and fetch you a loaf of bread to feed your starving family, I'm going to say no."
"I understand."
"I'm serious," said Tim. "Even if your kids are on fucking fire, and you ask me to walk across the street and piss on them, I'm going to tell you to kiss my little halfling ass."
"Jesus, Tim," said Dave. "You've made your point. Take it down a notch."
"Your overzealous lack of compassion is noted and accepted," said the stranger. "This world is rife with charlatans and ne'er-do-wells. You are wise to steel yourself against false appeals to tender hearts."
"I'm smart," Tim corrected him. "Dave's the wise one." It didn't hurt to butter up Dave just a bit more. "What do you say, Dave? We've made it perfectly clear that we have every intention of abusing this man's generosity and ignoring his pleas for help. Do you feel better now?"
"Not really."
"That's not a no."
"Actually, it kinda –"
"It's settled, then," said Tim. "Lead us, tall stranger, into drunken oblivion."
The stranger smiled. "When you've settled your affairs here, you may join me in booth number five. I'll be waiting." He turned his back to them and gracefully strode between tables full of drunk humans, quasi-humans, and straight up monsters toward the curtained booths at the back of the tavern.
Tim sucked down the rest of his skunky warm beer, spilling at least half as much down his shirt as he was spilling down his esophagus.
Dave took another shot of stonepiss. "This is so stupid. There is no way this will end well."
"That's it," said Tim. "No more bitching and moaning until I'm drunk enough to ignore it. Now go pay the tab and I'll meet you in booth five."
"Where are you going?" asked Julian.
"I've got to take a piss, and let Cooper know where we are."
"Check on Ravenus for me?"
Tim sighed. "Fine."
He walked out of the front entrance, not nearly drunk enough to call out to a bird in a British accent without feeling silly. But when free booze or sex was at stake, sometimes you just need to check your pride at the door.
"Ello! Ello!" Tim called into the darkening purple sky.
"Ho there, halfling!" said an elf passing by on the other side of the street. He was one of a group of five. With their wild hairstyles and black leather clothes, they looked like teenage ruffians, but you could never tell with an elf. They could have been three hundred years old for all Tim knew. "Are you talking to me?"
"Oh no," said Tim, instinctively reverting back to the Common tongue. "I was talking to a friend."
The leader of the elf pack made a show of looking left, then right, then back at Tim. "I don't see no friends." He continued to speak in his native Elven language, or British as far as Tim was concerned. "Is your friend an elf?"
"No!" said Tim, not quite sure of why he said it so abruptly. "He's a… bird." From the confused and angry looks on their faces, he guessed he wasn't helping his situation.
The leader tilted his head until his neck cracked. "He's a bird?"
The conversation was slipping away from Tim. If he wanted to avoid getting his ass kicked by The Cure, he needed to try an unskilled Diplomacy check. "I mean, it's not that I don't have elf friends. I have elf friends. Well an elf friend, but –"
"I don't see no birds neither, mate," said the leader, stepping into the street toward Tim. "And if your friend is a bird, that still don't explain why you was shoutin' out in Elven."
"I think he's takin' the piss out of us, Derrick," said one of the subordinate elves, the one with the green curtain of hair hanging down over the right side of his face.
"Is that right, halfling?" said the leader, Derrick. "Are you takin' the piss?"
Tim sighed with relief. "That's precisely what I came out here to do."
Derrick stopped in his tracks right in the middle of the street. He turned back to his friends and laughed. "Do you believe this guy?"
"He fancies himself a jester," said the green-haired elf.
Derrick pointed at Tim. "You's a funny little guy."
Tim wanted to take the words at face value, but sensed they were more menacing than that. "Um… thank you?"
Derrick glanced up and down the empty street, then scowled at Tim. "Let's see how funny you are with no tongue." He flicked his wrist, and there was suddenly six inches of shiny steel in his hand.
Tim felt a rush of warmth in his crotch area as he made good on his word to take the piss.
"Is there a problem here?" said a voice from behind, and significantly above, Tim's head.
Cooper. Tim relaxed, but made no effort to stem the flow of urine down his left leg. There was really no point now.
Derrick, staring up past Tim, took a step back and retracted his blade. "Who are you?"
Tim crossed his arms over his chest, confident in spite of his soaked pants. "This is my friend, Cooper."
"That ain't no bird, mate."
"What the fuck is he talking about?" asked Cooper.
"Hullo then!" said Ravenus, flapping down to perch atop a parked wagon. "What's the trouble?"
Tim was uncomfortable speaking in a British accent around actual elves, but fuck it. These guys were assholes, and his dignity was already puddled around his feet.
"Julian wanted me to make sure you were okay."
"Couldn't be better, sir!" said Ravenus. "There's a sickly dire rat around the back of the pub. He's not quite dead, but he's nearly there. Whatever he's dying from is causing his skin to rot, so he tastes about right. I've been pecking away at him a bit, you see."
"That's lovely," said Tim. "I'll be sure and let Julian know."
"Very good then," said Ravenus. "Toodle pip!" He flew out of sight over the roof of the building.
"Well I'll be," said the green-haired elf. "He was tellin' the truth about the bird after all."
"I beg your pardon, mate," said Derrick, backing further away still.
"Fuck off," said Tim. "Come on, Coop. We're getting the V.I.P. treatment in here."
Tim led Cooper back through the crowded tavern, past the table they had been sitting at, which was now occupied by a group of gnolls, and finally to the curtained private rooms at the rear of the establishment.
"Booth number five," said Tim. He pulled back the curtain.
Soft pink and green light emanated from sconces near the ceiling, casting a soft, multi-colored glow on the table and benches below, reflecting and refracting on the fancy glassware.
That was as much as Tim had time to notice before Dave shouted, "YOOOOOOOOO!"
He was standing on the bench, opposite Julian and the stranger, his left hand raised over his head in devil horns, and his right hand holding an empty glass bottle upside down like a microphone.
"His name is Cooper! He's always in a stupor! He's late for the party cuz he was in the pooper!"
"Please make this stop," said Tim, as Dave made a poor attempt at beatbox noises.
"His strength is super! So call a state trooper! If you wanna battle him, you can –"
Cooper ended Dave's rap career with a swift, controlled punch in the face. Dave collapsed neatly into a sitting position. Cooper shoved his unconscious body to the side and took a seat next to him.
"Can someone please fill me in on what's been going on since I went out for a dump?"
Tim gestured at the stranger. "This man, Mr…"
"Please, just call me Colin."
"He's buying us drinks in exchange for us listening to his bullshit."
Cooper scratched behind his ear. "Is this like a timeshare pitch?"
"No," said Tim. "It's something about his sick kid who we're absolutely not going to help."
"Fuck," said Cooper. "That sounds depressing as shit. Better hook me up with some of whatever Dave was drinking."
Julian stuck to beer, either genuinely interested in Colin's blathering about curses and witches and drinking water, or doing a hell of a job of feigning it.
Tim was tempted to join Cooper in drinking whatever Dave had gotten so trashed on, but he didn't have as high a Constitution score as either of those two. Any drink that made Dave think he could rap was sure to put Tim in a coma. He wasn't quite ready for that just yet, so he also stuck to beer.
The night carried on and the drinks kept flowing. Julian held the party true to their word by listening to Colin drone on about his problems while Tim and Cooper looked through the half-open curtain and discussed which of the tavern's patrons they'd most like to have sex with.
Without an abundance of mammalian females in the establishment, Tim and Cooper's conversation devolved into which of the patrons they'd be willing to have sex with in a pinch, and then if continued civilization depended on it.
"That's not what I said," Cooper explained as he poured the remaining contents of a bottle into his glass. "I said it's not gay if you get halfway through before you find out it's a dude, like in Thailand."
Tim, halfway through his fifth mug of beer, forgot what argument he had been trying to make, and nodded his surrender to Cooper. The beer was taking its toll, and Tim's eyelids were getting heavy.
"Dude!" said Cooper. "Don't fall asleep! This is important, man!" He lightly slapped Tim on the cheek.
Tim shook himself out of sleep's grasp. "I'm awake! I'm awake!"
Cooper gulped back the rest of his drink. "I know what you need."
"Huh?"
"Some music."
"No, I don't –"
Cooper pulled the curtain all the way open and stepped out of the booth. "Let's get this party started!"
"What is he doing?" cried Colin. "Get him back in here this instant!"
The tavern's patrons watched in stunned silence as Cooper tried to sing YMCA. He obviously didn't know any of the lyrics. The only words he articulated were "Young man" and "YMCA." Being illiterate, he didn't even know what the letters looked like, so his accompanying dance resembled something more like PTX4. He made it all the way to a second X before a glass flew out of the crowd and smashed him in the forehead. Cooper went down like a chopped tree, and conversations picked up where they'd left off.
Colin and Julian dragged Cooper back inside and sat him down next to Dave.
Colin pulled the curtain shut. "Well, that was… interesting."
"Maybe it's time we call it a night," said Julian.
"But I have not yet finished my tale."
"I think we've heard enough."
"I haven't heard shit," said Tim. There was no way he was leaving without having a taste of whatever this stuff was that made Dave and Cooper think they could sing. Dave still had a nearly full glass in front of him. "Let him talk a bit more."
"How am I supposed to get all of you assholes back to the Whore's Head?"
"Just one more drink," said Tim, eyeing Dave's glass.
Julian sighed. "Fine, but that's it."
As Colin started talking again, Tim sniffed Dave's drink. It smelled like citrus. He took a sip. It was sweet and made his mouth tingle.
"Fantastic," he mumbled to himself before gulping back the rest of the glass.
"Okay," said Julian. "That was nice and quick. Now let's get out of here. Thank you for a wonderful night, Mr. Colin. We're sorry we can't help youuuuuuuuuuuu…"
Time slowed down. Tim's vision was suddenly in polarized shades of blue and orange. The rest of the night was like a series of shuffled photographs.
Julian screamed, clutching his forearm.
Colin's face elongated and became covered in fur. He had fangs and glowing red eyes. Sweet!
Ravenus was flapping around, scratching Colin in the face. Blue feathers everywhere.
Tim was standing on top of the table, singing My Sharona.
Gnolls carried them all outside and dumped them on the street. |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 5 | Tim awoke to the sound of a loud, hacking cough. He was wet and cold and uncomfortable. He opened his eyes and found that his vision was no longer made up of vivid oranges and blues. In fact, he may have lost all sense of color completely. All he could see was grey. The sky. It was raining.
The cough again.
Tim turned his head, and his face came in contact with Cooper's slimy wet skin. Ew. He turned his head the other way, and his nose rubbed against rough wood. The sound of wooden wheels rolling through mud registered in his mind. They were in the back of a cart. He sat up.
A muddy trail flowed beneath them like a river. After a second's consideration, Tim reasoned that they, rather than the trail, were the ones moving.
Cough. Cough.
It was Dave. He was lying on Cooper's arm, hacking like a two-pack-a-day smoker and reaching down for a nonexistent blanket.
Tim stretched his back and neck to look behind him and saw that Julian was riding the horse that was pulling the cart. At least it looked like Julian from behind. The brim of his sombrero sagged down with water, obscuring his head. Tim had no reason to believe it wasn't Julian, but could think of no reason for them all to be on a cart headed for who-knew-where at the ass crack of dawn in the rain.
"Dave!" Tim whispered.
"I'm ready when you are, baby," said Dave. He gave up on the blanket and placed a hand over Cooper's nipple.
When Tim got over his initial fit of gagging, he retrieved his dagger from the sheath beneath his vest, held it by the blade, and reached over to clonk Dave on the helmet with the pommel.
"What!" said Dave. "Okay, I'm up. I'm just… give me a sec, okay."
"Oh good," said Julian. "You guys are awake? Hold on. I've only got maybe thirty minutes left on this Mount spell. I'm going to pick up the pace a bit."
"Jesus!" cried Dave, coming to terms that he'd been caressing Cooper's man-tit in his sleep. He sprang to his feet like reverse footage of a marionette being dropped. The cart jolted forward, and Dave lost his balance. He fell right off the back, splashing into the mud.
"Julian!" shouted Tim. "Stop the cart! We lost Dave!"
"Dammit!" said Julian. "Whoa!" The cart stopped moving and Julian turned around. "I told you guys to hang on."
Cooper sat up. "What's going on? Why is my nipple hard?" His eyes went wide. "Shit! Mudman!" He leapt off the back of the cart and tackled Dave, who was covered in mud and stumbling toward them.
"Get off me!" said Dave, struggling under Cooper's weight.
"Knock it off, Cooper," said Tim. "That's Dave, and you know it."
Cooper stood up. "It could've been a mudman."
"That's not even a thing."
"I hope you guys are happy," said Julian, his boots squishing in the mud as he joined the others at the rear of the cart. "Our first horse just timed out."
Dave sat up in his muddy puddle. "Where are we? What are we even doing out here?" He glared up at Julian. "We're on a quest, aren't we? I told you this would happen! I said let's go back to the Whore's Head, but nobody listened to me. You and your stupid bleeding heart had to –"
"It's not my heart that's bleeding, Vanilla Ice," said Julian. "It's my arm." He pulled his left arm out from beneath his serape. He had a purple bruise, about the size of a baseball, on the underside of his forearm. In the middle of it was a football-shaped pattern of puncture wounds. He'd been bitten.
"Ouch," said Tim. "That looks bad." Fractured memories of the previous night flashed in his head.
"Ya think?"
"That Colin guy. Did he turn into a wolf at some point? Or did I dream that?"
"He's a werewolf," said Julian. "And if we don't bring him some golden figurine from some stupid ancient shrine before the next full moon, I'm going to be a werewolf too."
"Sweet!" said Cooper.
"It's not sweet," said Julian. "I don't want to be a fucking werewolf!"
"Why not? Think about it." Cooper counted off the justifications for his position on his fingers. "You'd have a super sense of smell. Girls would line up for miles to ride your wolf dick. Ummm… you'd be awesome at basketball."
"Cooper," said Tim. "Could you please shut the fuck up for a minute."
"Yeah, all right."
Tim wiped the rain off of his face and looked up at Julian. "Don't listen to Cooper. You most certainly do not want to be a werewolf. You'll have to make a whole bunch of Saving Throws every time there's a full moon, or you'll lose control of yourself and go on a murderous rampage. That's almost certainly grounds for Frank kicking us out of the Whore's Head."
"You guys," said Dave, still sitting in the mud. "If there's a remedy available, why don't we just go back into town and buy it?"
Tim and Cooper looked at Julian.
"You honestly think that wouldn't occur to me?" asked Julian. "Colin said the only cure was to drink a vial of blood from the same creature who bit me. I guess it works like a vaccine or something."
"Something's not right," said Dave. "I don't remember anything about that from the Monster Manual."
"What do you remember?"
"Not much," Dave admitted. "Lycanthropy was complicated. You had to keep track of moon cycles, Saving Throws, Willpower checks, and a whole bunch of other shit, so we never really used them much in our games."
"Come on," said Julian. "You guys have been playing this game for years. One of you must remember something about werewolves."
Tim thought hard, grasping for any recollection. "I remember they have Damage Resistance to anything but silver or magical weapons."
"Okay great! Now how about something useful?"
Tim, Dave, and Cooper exchanged shameful glances before turning back to Julian.
"Seriously? Nothing?"
"Dave's right," said Cooper. "The lycanthropy rules are too complicated. Who wants to keep track of all that shit? We just wanted to drink beer and roll dice."
Julian shook his head. "You must be the worst group of gamers in the history of Caverns and Creatures."
Tim squished some mud between his toes. "How much time do we have? When's the next full moon?"
"What do I look like?" Julian snapped. "A fucking astrologer?"
"I'm just trying to help."
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm just a little freaked out by all this. A dude bit me, and I've got his infected spit flowing around in my blood."
"Yeah, that's fucked up," said Cooper.
Julian looked skyward. "I couldn't see the moon because of the clouds. I could have anywhere from a day to the better part of a month."
Tim nodded. "Best not take any chances."
"Right. So everyone hop back on the cart, and I'll summon another horse."
Dave stood up. "When did we get a cart?"
"I think we stole it," said Julian. "It was parked on the street outside the tavern when we got thrown out. Colin helped me load you guys onto it and told me to take it. I wasn't exactly in a position to argue."
The rain continued to fall as Julian used up the rest of his Mount spells. The trail led into dense jungle that no party of low level adventurers had any business going into. The trees themselves looked like they might reach out and grab Tim if he let his guard down for a second. The roots slowed the cart to almost walking speed. The one nice thing about the rain was that he didn't have to step off the trail in order to pee. His clothes were already soaking wet, and he could piss himself without anyone knowing. Then again, judging by the hours they'd spent on the trail already with no one calling for a pee break, his friends had likely come to the same conclusion.
When the last magical horse disappeared, they had to abandon the cart and continue on foot. The jungle was alive with strange noises. Creatures snarled, slithered, and hissed from just beyond where Tim could see. His eyes darted left and right as he pointed his trembling crossbow toward every sound he heard.
"Great news, gents!"
Thwang.
"FUCK!"
"Shit," said Tim. "Sorry, man. I didn't –"
"Put that thing away!" said Cooper, plucking the bolt out of his ass. He flung it into the dark jungle.
"You found something?" Julian asked Ravenus, who had been the one who'd scared the shit out of Tim.
Ravenus perched atop Julian's quarterstaff. "A tree decorated with skulls."
"Under what set of circumstances would that ever be considered great news?" asked Dave.
"It's the last of the landmarks Colin told me about," said Julian. "It means we're almost there. Good work, Ravenus. Stay close, okay?"
After another ten minutes of trudging through the mud, they saw it. Ravenus's description had not adequately prepared Tim for the horror standing before them. This wasn't just some lazy goth kid's Christmas tree. It was a living nightmare.
The trunk was thick and black. Low-hanging branches reached out like tentacles, the ends of which sprouted smaller tentacle fingers tipped with dark purple heart-shaped leaves. Blue-green vines covered the trunk like varicose veins, wrapping around branches, worming through the eyes, noses, and mouths of the skulls.
And there were so many skulls. Different shapes and sizes. Some were human sized. Some were smaller or bigger, ranging from halfling to half-orc. A curious number of them had no eye sockets. Just flat bone where eyes should be.
As disturbing as that was, the thing that frightened Tim most was a relatively fresh dwarven head. It hung upside down by its long, brown beard, staring at Tim with its cloudy hazel eyes.
"This is amazing!" said Julian. "I wish I could take these back home to show my anthropology professor."
"Yeah," said Tim. "Me, too. Like, right now." He felt Julian wasn't appreciating the message implied by a tree full of skulls. If his anthropology professor was here, he might suggest it was a warning that they should all get the fuck away from this place as quickly as possible.
"I've found it, sir," said Ravenus, settling on the branch under the dwarf head. "There's a clearing to the southeast with a man-made structure at the center." He pecked out one of the hazel eyes.
"Jesus!" said Dave.
Julian looked away. "Good work, Ravenus."
Julian led them off the trail, into the thick undergrowth of the jungle. Not a single plant let them pass by without either taking something (blood, skin, bits of fabric from their clothes) or giving something (powder, slime, barbed seeds). They swam through a sea of vegetation, easy prey for anyone, or anything, that might call this place home.
Tim didn't know if they'd traveled mere yards or full miles when they finally broke free of the jungle's grasp. The sky, still cloudy as it was, was a welcome sight. It was brighter than Tim expected. How long had they been traveling? How long had it been since he'd slept, the time spent passed out drunk notwithstanding?
"That's it?" said Cooper.
The clearing was perfectly circular, probably the same area as a football field. The soil was as dark and rich as that of the surrounding jungle, but not a single plant grew within it. At the center of the clearing stood a modest stone structure about the size of a shipping container. It was mostly unadorned, except for a symbol above the entrance, which looked like an empty Venn diagram. The only other thing in the clearing was a large log, about two feet thick and twelve feet long, lying on the ground next to it.
"It's not much of a temple," said Julian.
Tim scanned the clearing and put his hand on the grip of his crossbow. "At least it should be easy enough to search."
"I don't think so," said Dave. "That symbol above the doorway. Those are the double rings of Yulu Hari, the goddess of Life and Death. Any temple to her would be round. My guess is this is one of several entrances. The temple itself is underground."
"Shit," said Cooper, Julian, and Tim.
"Get down!" Julian whispered.
The four of them crouched at the edge of the jungle as a pale, muscular, almost naked man emerged from the structure. He wore a loincloth nearly as ratty as Cooper's. His scraggly grey hair hung over his face. He was carrying a wooden pail.
"Do you think he saw us?" whispered Dave.
"I don't think he saw shit," said Cooper. "Look at him."
A small gust of wind blew the hair out of the man's face for a second, revealing his lack of eyes.
"I know these guys!" Julian whispered excitedly. "We saw some of their skulls in the tree."
"That's really fucking interesting," said Tim. "Now keep your voice down."
The eyeless creature sniffed the air, turning his head left and right. Could he smell intruders? Would he soon have four new decorations for his tree? Tim held his breath. The creature walked vaguely, but not directly, toward them, stopping once again to sniff the air when he was about a quarter of the way between the temple entrance and the edge of the jungle. He dumped the contents of his bucket, a lumpy brown liquid, on the ground.
Tim thought he heard faint scratching and clawing sounds, but couldn't see anything to account for them.
The creature lifted the front of his loincloth and started to piss. The sound of his urine hitting the ground seemed off by a fraction of a second. Were Tim's ears playing tricks on him? Then there was a hiss. Tim was sure he heard that, but couldn't account for the source. The only candidate was the creepy blind guy taking a leak, and he looked like he was really enjoying it because he was laughing. His laughter was deep and throaty. Whatever had hissed, it certainly wasn't him. Having finished his business, he picked up his pail and went back inside.
Tim exhaled. "Hey Dave. This goddess, Yolo Honey."
"Yulu Hari," said Dave.
"Whatever. Is she a good goddess or an evil goddess."
"She's neutral."
"That figures." Tim stood up and looked into the clearing. "I suppose hoping she was good was a longshot. Not that it matters much. These guys aren't going to – Wait a second."
"What's wrong?" asked Julian.
"Where's that dude's piss puddle? And the shit he dumped on the ground?" The clearing was flat and featureless.
Julian shrugged. "Is that really the most interesting thing you feel you've seen today?"
"I just think it's strange that it's not there. Don't you?"
"I don't know," said Julian. "Maybe he kicked some dirt over it."
Cooper rubbed his belly. "I've got a good one brewing if you want to watch."
"Jesus, Cooper!" said Tim. "Why would you even –" His whole body shuddered. "I really didn't need that image in my head."
"Listen guys," said Julian. "We don't know how much daylight we've got left, or when the next full moon is. So maybe we should stop screwing around."
"We need a plan," said Tim. "We can't just walk in there blindly."
Julian grinned and nudged Cooper with his elbow. "I think we all just witnessed evidence to the contrary."
Everyone frowned at Julian.
"'Cause he's got no eyes," Julian explained. "He walked in there blindly."
"Meh," said Cooper. "It's funnier than a Dave joke."
"Hey!" said Dave.
Tim put his hands on his hips and glared at Julian. "Wasn't someone just saying something about how we should stop screwing around?"
"Sorry."
"Let's get to the entrance first and figure out how to proceed from there. Keep your voices down. These things are blind, which probably means they have an excellent sense of hearing. So stay close, and stay quiet."
Tim started walking into the clearing as silently as he could. Julian walked ahead with him, while Cooper and Dave lagged behind a few yards.
"That guy was sniffing the air a lot," Julian whispered to Tim. "They probably have a good sense of smell as well."
"Speaking of which, do you smell that?" The air was suddenly ripe with the stench of sewage. It was like they just walked into a cloud of concentrated Cooper. "Where the fuck is that coming frooooo—"
Splat.
Tim turned over. He'd fallen at least ten feet and landed on his face, but he wasn't hurt. His fall had been broken by a soft layer of… He looked at his hands, then at the ground around him. "Shit!"
"Tim?" said Julian. He was standing on the side of the trench, staring down, but not at Tim. The ground was an illusion. Tim could see out, having fallen through it, but Julian couldn't see in.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" said Tim. He was covered in soupy excrement. He could feel it seeping into the hundreds of tiny cuts the jungle plants had given him.
"Where are you?" Julian asked. He turned around. "I don't know. He just disappeared. He's around here somewhere. He keeps saying Shit."
Tim was about to break down and start crying when he saw a familiar face. About twenty feet away from him, a dire rat snarled and bared its brown, shit-stained teeth. Behind it, two more giant rats stared at him through their beady little demon eyes. The largest of the three had a face full of wet fur, and looked none too pleased about it. Tim had faced stronger, more objectively terrifying creatures than these Rottweiler-sized rodents, but since one of their kind had been the first creature in this world to nearly kill him, he had a special terror reserved just for them.
"Ro – Ro – Ro –"
"…your boat?" asked Julian.
"Rope!" Tim remembered he had a rope in his bag. He reached inside, grabbed the coil of rope, wrapped his wrist with one end, and threw the rest of the coil up out of the trench.
"Hey," said Julian. "That's incredible. How did you do that?"
"Pull the goddamn rope!"
The rope pulled him up by the arm just in time to avoid the first rat lunge. The piss-face rat jumped up at him, though, catching his left pant leg.
Tim's vision went wonky as Julian and the dire rat played tug-of-war with him. His head kept bobbing up over the surface of the illusory ground, making it appear as if he was buried up to the neck. And then the rat would pull harder, and he'd see the horrifying reality below.
Dave tipped the scales in the tug-of-war game. He and Julian pulled Tim up out of the trench. The rat's head was now the one bobbing above and below the surface of the illusion as it held on to Tim's pant leg. It looked like a glitchy computer game.
Cooper finally grabbed the dire rat, pulled it away from Tim, and body slammed it back into the trench.
Julian wiped sweat off his forehead. "I guess that explains what the log is for."
"Cooper," said Tim. "This trench is about ten feet wide. Do you think you could jump that?"
"No sweat," said Cooper. "There aren't a whole lot of Strength-based skills, so I put all my points into Swim, Climb, and Jump. I could make that jump with Dave's mom hanging on my dick."
Dave shook his head. "That doesn't even mean anything. That was just purposeless vulgarity."
Tim got on his hands and knees and pawed at the ground until he found the edge. "Okay, Cooper. Get a running start. The edge is here where my hand is."
Cooper ran, jumped, and landed easily on the other side of the invisible trench. As strong as he was, it took every point of Strength he had to lift that log up to a standing position. He carefully felt for the edge of the trench with his foot as he rolled the vertical log into place, then let it fall to the other side, bridging the trench.
Tim and Julian crossed the log with ease. Dave had a tougher time of it, and nearly lost his balance at the end, but Cooper caught him by the arm and pulled him safely the rest of the way.
"Well here we are," said Julian. "Who wants to go in first?"
"I'm going in alone," said Tim. "Can you make me a light?"
"That's crazy," said Cooper. "You almost got killed by a fucking rat just now. How are you gonna take on an army of eyeless assholes?"
"I'm not going to take them on. I'm going to sneak in, get what we came for, and sneak back out again."
Julian shook his head. "I can't let you do that. I'm the reason we're here. At least I've got to go in with you. I can be quiet."
"I'm a rogue," said Tim. "This is what I'm made for. I've got a bunch of ranks in the Move Silently skill. Those are all for nothing if I have you guys tagging along. You're a sorcerer. Now sorcer me up a light."
Julian touched Tim's crossbow. "Light." The weapon glowed with a soft, white light.
"I'm just going to take a peek inside first," said Tim. "Give me ten minutes." He stepped into the open entrance, then turned to his friends. "Or until I start screaming."
Taking his first steps down the stone stairs, Tim felt strange to be Moving Silently while carrying a glowing weapon. It seemed counterintuitive. He'd be the most visible thing in the whole temple.
They don't have eyes. Light means nothing to them.
He descended about fifty more steps before he came to his first obstacle. A set of black velvet curtains with the goddess's symbol embroidered in gold thread. The double rings of whatever the fuck her name was.
Tim licked his dry lips. They tasted like shit. Should he go back and report this? No. This wasn't information that would serve a purpose. Whatever was on the other side of that curtain was what was important. If he turned back now, it would only be because he was too scared to look. Come on, Tim.
Trying not to think about what he was doing, he felt for the edge of the left curtain. The glowing crossbow, loaded and cocked, felt heavy in his right hand. His heart was racing and he knew that he'd shoot at anything he saw, whether it was a threat or not. With his luck, it would probably be a gong, or a set of wind chimes. He moved his finger away from the trigger.
On one. Ready? One!
He pulled back the curtain and thrust his crossbow inside to reveal…
More stairs?
Tim sighed silently, trying to force his heart rate to slow. Why the hell would they even put a curtain there? It's not much of a defense. But then, this wasn't meant to be a fortress. It was a place of worship.
The stairway beyond the curtain curved gently to the right. Twenty steps later, Tim arrived at another set of curtains, identical to the first. He pulled the left curtain back and was not surprised to see more stairs. He was surprised, however, to hear faint chanting. It wasn't in any language he understood, but it must have been at least a hundred voices strong.
That's what the curtains were for, to absorb sound. Tim followed the stairs down in an increasingly tighter spiral until he reached a third and, from the clarity of sound on the other side, final set of curtains.
His heart was beating fast again. He pulled the curtains apart very slowly, just enough to peek through. As he expected, it was too dark on the other side without the aid of his glowing crossbow to see much, but he appeared to be on the edge of an enormous pit, with orange light coming from somewhere below.
Reminding himself again that these creatures had no eyes, he worked up the courage to step through the curtains. The chamber was vast. Tim found himself on the top tier of something like a Greek theater. Concentric circles formed ten foot high steps that eventually led down to a fire pit with a stone dais raised out of the flames at its center. A lone figure stood atop the dais, chanting words that Tim couldn't understand. Above his eyeless head, he held a six inch golden statue, no doubt the item they had been tasked with stealing. A congregation of at least two hundred worshipers stood on the second tier, repeating the chant. How the fuck were they going to pull this off?
"Guard!" shouted a voice from the tier below Tim. "Guard! I'm hungry! I'm so hungry!"
Tim got on his knees and peeked over the edge. The upper tiers of the temple were much less populated than the lower ones, but this asshole was calling a lot of attention to himself, and potentially to Tim as well.
One of the eyeless creatures – Tim was almost certain it was the same one they'd seen outside – stomped toward the source of the pleading voice. He didn't look pleased. He paused briefly as he passed under Tim's position and sniffed the air. He raised his upper lip in disgust, showing off his rotten teeth as he faced Tim directly. Tim remained perfectly still, holding his breath and trying not to piss himself again.
"Guard!" shouted the voice again. "I'm hungry!"
The creature broke his non-gaze away from Tim and continued stomping toward the prisoner.
"No food!" said the creature. "You. Eat. Morning!"
"Oh," said the prisoner. "Okay."
That's it? Okay? How hungry could you be, you fat fucker? You nearly got me killed!
Then it occurred to him. The prisoner wasn't trying to get the guard's attention. He was trying to get his attention. He'd seen the light from the crossbow, and wanted to let Tim know he was there. But he couldn't very well shout Hey! Come help me! Not bad thinking on his part.
Normally, Tim would look at this as another chore to heap on the pile, but this guy might actually be useful. There were a hell of a lot of those things between him and the golden statue. Tim was ready to take whatever help he could get.
He crawled back to the curtains leading to the staircase, in case he needed to make a run for it, and waited for the guard to go away. Grumbling as he left, the guard proved easy to keep track of by sound.
When Tim deemed it safe enough, he sneaked to just above where he estimated the prisoner's voice to have been coming from. The tiers were interrupted by staircases every couple of hundred feet, and Tim was right in the middle of two of them. Each one had a few of the eyeless creatures milling about, so he decided to take the fast way down. He crept up to the edge of the tier he was standing on, and lowered himself down until he was hanging by his fingertips. There was still about six feet of empty space between his feet and the next tier, but he didn't think that would amount to any loss of Hit Points. He let go.
As soon as he landed, two meaty hands lunged out at him, grabbed his upper arms, and pulled him up against iron bars. The dwarf on the other side of the bars averted his eyes as if in pain.
"You have to help me!" he whispered.
"That's what I'm trying to do, fucktard," said Tim. "Let go of me so I can get you out of there. And for fuck's sake, keep your voice down."
The dwarf released Tim's arms. While Tim dug through his bag for his thieves' tools, the dwarf hunkered down next to him.
"They killed my brother two days ago," said the dwarf, wringing his hands. "I fear they will come for me tonight."
Tim unrolled his picks and chose the one he thought best suited to this particular lock. "Your brother didn't have hazel eyes, did he?"
A tear rolled down the dwarf's dirty, haggard face. "Aye, and a beautiful pair of eyes they were. How is it you come to guess that?"
Tim tried to remain focused on the lock. He felt around inside for the tumblers. "Just lucky. I've got a really high Intelligence."
"I won't argue that," said the dwarf. "It was right smart of you to cover yourself in grimlock excrement."
"Grimlock!" said Tim. Since he saw the first one outside, he had been trying to remember what these things were called.
"They can find an outsider by scent."
The lock popped, more loudly than Tim would have preferred. "Shit!" What was he doing? This wasn't part of the plan.
"Olag will have heard that," said the dwarf.
"Who the fuck is Olag?"
"He's the grimlock in charge of guarding me. Real nasty feller."
"Yeah," said Tim. "I think I know the one." The door creaked when Tim pushed it. Figuring it best to avoid a prolonged noise, Tim relied on ripping-off-a-Band-Aid logic and gave it a good hard push. Noisy as the door was, it was surprisingly light on the hinges. The scream of iron on iron was loud enough to interrupt the chanting a hundred feet below them, and the clang of door against cage didn't help matters either.
"Olag will certainly have heard that."
"Shit," said Tim. He'd fucked up trying to rescue this stupid dwarf. The statue was going to have to wait. "Let's move."
He took a step toward the stairway on the right, but there was Olag, running at them with a raised battleaxe, screaming like an enraged chimpanzee. Tim fired his crossbow. The sphere of light which had been surrounding him was now surrounding the grimlock.
"That fucking idiot!" said Tim. "He enchanted the bolt!"
Olag fell, and the light turned dim and pink as blood gushed out of his throat. It was a Critical Hit for sure, which was nice, but left Tim and his fugitive dwarf in the dark. Hostile voices barked orders and angry battle cries. The chanting from below turned to chaos.
"Boost me up!" said the dwarf.
"I need to get my bolt back," said Tim. "I can't see without it!"
"Well I can see, halfling. And I'm telling you, there's no time. We must flee now!"
Tim believed him. The howls and barks that made up whatever language the grimlocks spoke were getting louder by the second. He locked his fingers together for the dwarf to step onto. The dwarf climbed from Tim's hands to the horizontal cell bar, then to the top of the tier and disappeared from Tim's view.
"Hey!" shouted Tim, no longer making any effort to keep quiet. "Don't you fuck off on me now!"
"Hurry!" said the dwarf, his hand reaching down as far as it could go. These were not the two most ideal races to be attempting such a maneuver.
Tim had always thought it kind of dumb that halflings got a +2 bonus to Jump checks, considering they got a -2 penalty for Strength, which is the ability score that the Jump skill depends on. But he was grateful for that bonus when he grabbed a cell bar, sprang into the air, and caught the dwarf's hand.
Olag's blood had obscured most of the light Tim's bolt was giving off, leaving Tim as good as blind.
"Hurry!" the dwarf repeated, grabbing Tim's arm and taking off in the direction of the stairwell Tim had entered from. Tim stumbled along blindly, trying to keep up as best as he could.
A particularly enraged roar, much closer than the general cacophony of roars currently echoing all over the temple, came from right in front of them.
"Get down!" said the dwarf. Tim was already on the floor with his arms wrapped over the top of his head. Sparks flashed as steel clanged against stone, but thankfully without the preceding sound of cutting through dwarf.
"Hnnng!" said the nearby grimlock. Tim could only assume that was Grimlockian for I just got uppercutted in the nuts by a pissed off dwarf. It's similar in any language.
The grimlock's axe fell to the floor. The next sound Tim heard was a dwarven grunt, followed by a grimlock scream, which fell away and abruptly stopped about ten feet below them.
"Come, halfling!" said the dwarf. "I have his axe, but dozens more approach." Tim felt the dwarf grab his arm and jerk him forward again. "We can't outrun them. Our only hope is to retreat to the stairwell and take them two at a time. We'll take as many of the eyeless bastards to the Abyss with us as we can!"
Tim felt the velvet brush over him as they passed through the curtain. The dwarf dragged him up a few stairs, then stopped.
"Have you considered not dying as an option?"
"Alas, my boy. I fear it be too late for that. They run far swifter than the likes of us."
The angry howling and barking was growing closer. A mob of angry grimlocks was nearly upon them. Tim crouched on the stairs and felt around in his bag.
"Stand up, lad! Die bravely!"
"I'd rather live cravenly," said Tim. He pulled his caltrop sack out of his bag. "Let's go!" He grabbed the surprised dwarf by the arm and gave him a shove up the stairs.
"Huh?"
"Just move your ass, man!" Tim tossed a single caltrop over his shoulder as he scrambled up the stairs behind the dwarf. A few steps later, he tossed a second.
"Just dump the bag already, and let's be on our way!"
"No," said Tim, continuing his routine of climbing and tossing. "If I shoot my load right now, they'll have it cleared away and be up on our asses long before we reach the –"
A grimlock howled out in pain about twenty feet below them.
"They're right behind us!" said the dwarf, continuing up the stairs.
Tim tossed another caltrop and kept climbing. "But that one fucker with the punctured foot will slow down the whole mob."
Climb. Toss. Climb. Toss.
"They have two choices," Tim continued. "They can proceed very slowly and carefully, not being able to see, hear, or smell these. Or they can risk a hole in the foot. Either way, they're –"
"Hwaaaahhh!" screamed another grimlock, this one maybe thirty feet below them.
It's working!
Tim felt the second curtain brush by him.
"Ho there!" shouted the dwarf. "State your business!"
A long, wet fart squirted out from above.
"They're with me!" said Tim.
"Tim?" said Cooper. "Is that you?"
"Yeah, I'm behind the dwarf. Turn around and start running!"
The five of them hurried up the gradually curving staircase. Dave, being unable to run in his armor, soon fell behind until even Tim had to slow down to avoid hobbling him with caltrops.
Another grimlock screamed in pain. They were somewhere between twenty and thirty feet behind Tim. The lead they had been gaining was now limited by Dave's sluggish Movement Speed.
Ahead, Tim was relieved to see the first faint flashes of light as the rest of his friends passed through the final set of curtains. Cooper was even thoughtful – or clumsy – enough to tear them down on his way through. Finally, Tim could actually see where he was going.
Climb. Toss. Climb. Toss. The bag was getting lighter. He'd be out of caltrops soon.
They were still maintaining their short lead, and Tim guessed they'd probably reach the surface unscathed, but what then? There were still a couple of hundred grimlocks after them. Should they stand and fight at the entrance of the temple? Between the five of them, they'd be able to take down quite a few of these assholes if they kept coming out only two at a time, but they'd only be prolonging the inevitable. They couldn't outrun them either. Making a break for open ground was only asking to be surrounded and more quickly slaughtered. Their only hope was that someone else was working on a third option.
The light of day, grim and grey as it was, widened as Tim approached the top of the staircase.
"We're almost there, Dave," said Tim, trying to be encouraging. "Move your ass!"
Dave huffed as he marched up the stairs. "You know I'm going as fast as I can!"
Tim dumped the few remaining caltrops from his sack and bolted past Dave to the surface, where Julian was standing impatiently with an open scroll.
"Get out of the way!" said Julian. "Dave, move to the right!" He looked at the scroll, the parchment trembling in his hands. "Horse!"
Tim dove out of the way as a hefty black steed materialized next to Julian.
"Yah!" said Julian, slapping the beast on the rump. It obediently charged blindly into the temple entrance.
"Fuck!" Dave shouted from within. The clash of metal, stone, and probably hoof, echoed out from the darkness of the staircase.
"Shit," said Julian. He called down to Dave, "I meant my right. I should have specified. My bad."
Dave finally emerged, among the screams of angry grimlocks and the whinny of a surprised horse, trudging up the last few stairs. He had a black left eye, his face was all scraped up, and his nose was bleeding into his beard. He didn't say a word as he limp-waddled past Tim, toward the log bridge, revealing a fresh hoof print on the backplate of his armor.
"I'm really angry!" said Cooper when Dave, Julian, Tim, and the other dwarf had crossed to the outer edge of the invisible trench. His body grew thick with four Strength Points' worth of muscle, and he picked the log up off the ground with ease.
"Good idea, Coop," said Tim. "Cut off their means of follow—What the fuck are you doing?"
Cooper turned around to face the temple entrance.
"Bwaaahhh!" said the first grimlock to reach the surface. He brandished his battleaxe as he sniffed the air for someone to hit with it. His nose wrinkled as he faced Cooper, but his disgust didn't last long. Cooper sent him back downstairs with a log to the chest. Several grimlocks just behind him screamed as they were forced back.
Cooper ran and jumped a good five feet before reaching the edge of the trench, but still landed about five feet beyond the other side.
"Julian, Dave, new guy!" said Tim. "Start running. We'll catch up with you at the skull tree."
"What are you going to do?" asked Julian.
"We have to stay back and fix Cooper's latest blunder."
Julian needed no further explanation. He, Ravenus, and the two dwarves bolted toward the jungle.
"You said it was a good idea," said Cooper, who had recovered from his Barbarian Rage.
"That's because I thought you were going to throw the log into the trench," said Tim. "I didn't think you were going to hand them their bridge."
"But did you see the look on that dude's face when I hit him with the log?"
Tim grinned as he loaded a bolt into his crossbow. "Yeah, that was pretty epic."
"So," said Cooper. "What are we doing?"
Tim trained his crossbow on the temple entrance as angry grimlock voices once again approached the surface. "As soon as they lay down that log, you're going to shove it into the trench."
The first two grimlocks emerged unburdened by their log. Tim chose a target, but held his fire, waiting to see what they would do. Both of them sniffed the air, homed in on Tim and Cooper, and started running for the trench.
Tim waited for his chosen target to get within about ten feet of where he'd have to jump from before firing his crossbow. As he'd hoped, the bolt interrupted his jump, but not his inertia. The injured grimlock stumbled, fell, and disappeared beneath the illusory ground.
The other grimlock cleared the trench, swinging his axe down at Cooper as he landed on the other side. Cooper ducked the blow and punched the grimlock in its eyeless face. It fell backwards into the trench. Invisible though they were, both grimlocks could be heard screaming as they tried to fend off what sounded like an army of hungry dire rats.
The next four grimlocks emerged with the log. The two at the front stood at the edge of the trench. With rehearsed timing, the four of them swung the log twice before releasing it, forming a perfect bridge, which they quickly used.
They were so efficient, in fact, that the first two were already on top of Cooper by the time he got a hold on the log. They tried to wrestle him away from it, but Cooper held on.
Tim drew his dagger, ran up, and stabbed one of the grimlocks in the small of the back. It let out a single, sharp cry, but Tim knew it was dead before it fell over and disappeared into the trench.
As the second pair of grimlocks stepped onto the bridge, Cooper gave up his struggle and concentrated fully on the log. While he succeeded in neutralizing the bridge, he did so at the cost of falling into the trench with it. Dire rats shrieked under the sudden weight of a log, a half-orc, and three more grimlocks.
"Cooper!" cried Tim, loading his crossbow again.
"I'm okay," Cooper called up. "Give me a minute!"
"We don't have a minute!" said Tim as two more grimlocks came limping out of the temple entrance. These two had obviously fallen victim to his caltrops. As pissed off as they appeared, Tim reasoned that they were no immediate threat. They didn't look to be in any state for trench-jumping.
The next two, however, looked perfectly nimble, as did the two that followed them.
There was a hell of a fight going on just below Tim's feet. Axes clanged against rocks. Rats squealed and hissed. Grimlocks grunted, growled, and barked. Cooper swore a lot. Tim wanted to help out, shoot something that wasn't Cooper, but he couldn't see anything beneath the façade of still, featureless earth.
Firing his crossbow might also give his position away. Tim couldn't be sure, but he didn't think the gathering crowd of grimlocks was paying any attention to him. His scent must still be masked. They looked to be far more interested in the fight below.
More than a dozen grimlocks crowded at the edge of their side of the trench, eagerly cheering whenever they heard a dire rat squeal. Tim got the feeling that they did this sort of thing for recreation. It reminded him of listening to a boxing match on the radio. Still more grimlocks filed out of the stairwell, some limping, some not, all eager to listen to the battle raging on below.
"Fuck! No! Get that one!" Cooper sounded as though he'd formed a temporary alliance with the surviving grimlocks. Getting trapped in a shit pit full of dire rats makes unlikely bedfellows.
Tim wanted to call out for his friends to come back, or call for Cooper to hurry up and do whatever he had planned. Keeping silent was driving him nuts.
"Ha ha!" said Cooper as one of the grimlocks below grunted. "Stupid fucker." One of the dire rats gave a particularly agitated squeal before flying out of the ground like it had been launched with a catapult.
The dire rat landed in the middle of the crowd of about fifty grimlocks, who then proceeded to freak the fuck out. The chaos that erupted was beautiful. Grimlocks screamed, shoved, and started swinging their axes with wild abandon. At least eight of them, who had been too close to the edge, fell into the trench, where they were met with more bloodthirsty rats and Cooper.
"Fuck! You!"
Two seconds later, a grimlock head flew into the crowd. This neither stemmed nor bolstered the panic-driven madness, as none of them could see it. Nice try, Cooper.
A second dire rat thrown into the fray, however, bolstered the madness quite nicely. Then Cooper's hands popped out of the ground, followed by the rest of him. He was scraped up, bloodied, and covered in shit, but he'd looked worse.
"Let's get the fuck out of here," said Cooper, climbing the rest of the way out of the trench. He picked up Tim and started running.
Tim fired his crossbow into the crowd of rat-crazed grimlocks because why the fuck not? He didn't know if he hit any of them or not. They were all screaming.
"How did you get out of the pit?" Tim asked, bouncing under Cooper's arm as they crashed through jungle foliage.
"I piled up a few grimlock bodies, climbed on those, and used my Jump skill."
"It's more useful than I'd given it credit for."
Before long, Cooper and Tim caught up to the others at the skull tree. Cooper set Tim on the ground.
The dwarf sat against the black trunk of the skull tree, cradling the head of his dead brother. "O Baelrick, sweet brother. What beautiful eyes you once had. How I hoped to gaze upon them one last time as I say goodbye. But alas, those savage devils deny me even that!" He turned the head outward to show how his brother's eyes had been removed.
"Pfft," said Cooper. "That was no savage devil. That –"
Julian clonked him on the head with his quarterstaff. "Shut up, Cooper!"
"What the fuck!"
Tim watched curiously as Julian attempted to cover what Cooper had already blabbed while simultaneously justifying his own outburst.
"The man is grieving," Julian explained slowly and deliberately. "The grimlocks ripped out this man's eyes. If that isn't savagery, then I don't know what is. This isn't the time for one of your lectures on racial harmony."
Well played, Julian. Would Cooper pick up the innuendo?
"Did you get hit in the fucking head? What the fuck are you talking about?"
Apparently not.
"We can talk about this later," said Julian, holding his staff like he was ready to hit Cooper with it again. "Let the man grieve."
"I'm a dwarf," said the dwarf. "In case you haven't noticed." He stood up. "My name is Dodwynn. I thank you, halfling, for rescuing me."
Tim lowered his head. "I'm sorry we didn't arrive in time to save your brother as well."
"Don't be," said Dodwynn. "The grimlocks did him a kindness, believe it or not. I feared he was destined for a worse fate, which would have claimed both our lives."
"What's that?" asked Julian.
"Lycanthropy."
"You don't say."
"It was torture," said Dodwynn. "Every day we were locked in that cage, not knowing when he would turn. We nearly went mad trying to keep track of how much time had passed, trying to remember when we last saw the moon, and what phase it was in."
"How long were you down there?"
"It's impossible to say for sure. Based on my beard growth, close to a month. Baelrick must have been bitten just after a full moon."
"So if he was still alive," said Julian. "And he hadn't turned by now…"
"Then tonight would almost certainly be the night."
"We have to go back for that statue," said Cooper.
"Statue?" said Dodwynn. "You sought the holy figure? That was our quest as well. Were one of you bitten?"
"There's no time for that," said Julian. "If it's his blood I need, I'll just go and get it. Werewolf or not, how strong could he be? Surely the five of us can hold the bastard down while I bite him back, right?" He turned to Dodwynn. "That is, if you'll join us."
"I believe we seek the same creature," said Dodwynn. "For my brother's honor, I shall join you."
"Any objections?"
Tim shook his head. "I like our odds against one werewolf better than two hundred angry grimlocks."
Evening brought more rain, which fell on them even harder once they emerged from the jungle. Once night fell, everyone kept a sharp eye on Julian, looking for signs of his turning. The rain felt great to Tim. It washed away the crust of grimlock shit from his skin and clothes. He'd never felt so alive, and so ready to kill someone. Tim's desire to hunt down Colin was neither altruistic nor borne of his friendship for Julian. It was straight up vengeance.
It was still raining when they reached the main road leading back to Cardinia. Julian had made it through the night thus far with no hint of change, as evidenced by his answers to Dodwynn's continuous questions.
"Do you feel anything?"
"No."
"Not even a little tingle?"
"No."
"Do you feel maybe you've grown a bit more hair in your genital area?"
"NO!"
"It just don't make no sense." Dodwynn looked up, letting the rain splash on his face. "If only we could see through those clouds."
Julian stopped walking. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that before?" He looked at Ravenus, tucked under his serape. "Why didn't you think of that before?"
"Think of what, sir?" said Ravenus. "I've only been privy to the part of this conversation where you keep saying 'No.' It's a tad hard to follow."
"Ravenus, I need you to go up and look at the moon for me. Can you do that?"
"If you like, sir. But I'd much rather this be a moment we could share."
"Stay focused, Ravenus! This is important. I need you to go look at the moon, and then come back here and report. Got it?"
Ravenus nodded resolutely. "Right away, sir!" He launched himself from Julian's bosom and climbed into the night.
"I don't know what you expect to gain by this," said Dave.
"What are you talking about?" said Julian. "I'd like to have at least some idea of when I'm going to turn into a goddamn dog!"
"Does it change what we've got to do tonight?"
"It might."
"Suppose Ravenus comes back and tells us we've got two weeks left."
"Impossible," said Dodwynn.
"But what if?" Dave continued. "Are any of us really going to rest while there's the potential for you wolfing out on us? Whatever we're going to do, we've got to –"
Ravenus returned, spraying the group as he shook the water out of his feathers.
"Did you see it?" asked Julian.
"Yes, sir."
"And?"
"Well, I'm not sure what you're expecting, sir. I'm hardly a poet, and you haven't given me much time to –"
"What phase is it in?"
"Phase, sir?"
"Is it waxing, waning, full, new?"
"Oh," said Ravenus. "It's full."
"Full?"
"Quite full, sir." Ravenus cleared his throat and flapped his wings. "Like the eye of a goddess, it shines down on –"
"What does he mean, it's full?" asked Dodwynn. "That can't be. Why haven't you changed?"
"Could it be the cloud cover?" asked Tim. "Maybe you have to be exposed directly to the moonlight, like a vampire is only affected by the sun if the light actually touches him."
"Dunno," said Dodwynn. "T'wouldn't seem like all that big of an issue if it could be managed by staying indoors a couple of nights a month."
"I disagree," said Julian. "It still feels like a pretty big issue to me. I'd much rather bring the odds of me involuntarily killing all of my friends down from slim to none."
Dodwynn stroked his beard. "Could explain why my brother never turned."
Tim looked up at the sky. The clouds were still thick in the sky, but who knew how fast that could change? "We have to get you into town, like, pronto. You don't have any more Mount spells?"
Julian shook his head. "I used all I had to get us to the temple, and then I used my emergency scroll to send a horse down the stairs."
"Shit," said Tim. "You might still have a chance to fix this if you get back to Colin before you change. But if the weather clears up before we get there…" Tim bit his lower lip, trying to think of a way to move faster.
"I can dig a hole," said Cooper. "We'll bury Julian until the sun comes up."
Julian frowned. "Anyone feel free to jump in with an Option B."
"Is it after midnight?" asked Dave.
Cooper snorted. "If it isn't, then your fairy godmother fucked you over bigtime."
"If it's technically a new day, all of our one-use-per-day abilities reset. Julian can get his spells back. Cooper gets his Barbarian Rage. We've been through this before."
"I'm really angry!" said Cooper.
"Cooper!" said Tim, turning around. "You don't have to waste –"
But Cooper had already hulked out. He ran over to a young pine tree about as thick around as one of Tim's legs.
"Fuck you, tree!" He punched it in the trunk, felling it in one blow. He twisted and tore the top of the tree from the stump and hurled it like a harpoon into the meadow.
"That wasn't strictly necessary," said Dave. "Sorcerers only need a few minutes of meditation to prepare their spells. We could have just waited for Julian to try."
Dodwynn scratched his head. "You all are a peculiar lot. The elf seems less affected by the moon than any of you."
While Cooper spent the remainder of his Barbarian Rage using various parts of his body to break up the tree trunk into smaller pieces, Julian sat on the wet road and meditated.
Tim watched the sky nervously for ten minutes. Every time the rain seemed to let up just a little bit, he clutched his dagger hilt, for all the good it would do him against a werewolf. He didn't know as much as he should about werewolves, but he knew that attacking one without a silver or enchanted weapon was tantamount to jumping the queue to have your throat ripped out.
Finally, Julian stood up. "Horse." And just like that, there was a gorgeous white stallion glistening in the rain next to him. Julian was still limited to four Level 1 spells, so Tim doubled up with him.
"These will only last a couple of hours, but that should be enough time to get back to town if we ride fast."
Once they were all mounted, they galloped as fast as their magical steeds would take them. It was thrilling at first, but Tim's arms soon became sore from holding on so tightly to Julian, and his ass started to ache from bouncing up and down on the horse. He was cold and wet and tired and sore. He wished he could just curl up and go to sleep.
"There are the walls!" Julian finally cried out. "We made it!"
Tim didn't know what he was so excited about. Making it back to town was the easy part. Drawing blood from a werewolf might prove a bit more challenging. He wished Cooper hadn't blown his Barbarian Rage already.
The main gates were closed at this time of night, but as long as you weren't leading a hostile army or a horde of zombies, the guards were pretty lax about letting folks in through a small door on the side.
Julian dismissed his magical steeds outside the city walls. "It feels good to end that spell without some act of horrible butchery."
Within the walls, the cobbled streets of Cardinia were cool and slick as Tim sloshed through the puddles. Having no idea what time it was, he had no way of knowing whether the lack of activity was due to the rain or the late hour. His answer came as the group neared the Collapsed Sewer District. Lights shone through several tavern windows, flickering where the source was fire, and steady where the source was enchanted. Tim judged the hour to be around two in the morning. The bars were still open, but the noise level suggested that things were beginning to die down.
Nobody remembered the exact location or the name of the pub they had met Colin in, so they wandered around aimlessly until Tim recognized the gang of elves that had almost kicked his ass the night before. They were huddled together, three of them barely able to stand up. The two lucid-looking elves looked scared. When one of them shifted their stance, Tim caught a glimpse of what they were all looking at. Steely blue eyes peered out of a black, hooded cloak. Colin, that werewolf motherfucker himself.
Tim stopped walking and waved for his friends to duck into an alley across the street.
"He's there," Tim whispered. "He's talking to a group of elves. They look drunk and scared. He's probably pulling the same shit on them that he did with us."
"Let's go jump him," said Cooper excitedly. "If the other group joins in, our odds will be even better."
"Bad idea," said Dave. "They're scared, confused, and drunk. They might just as easily try to defend him if they think he holds the cure for their affliction. We're not going to have time to explain our case before all hell breaks loose."
Tim and Julian peeked around the corner. Colin was showing the group a vial of red liquid.
"That's his pitch," said Julian. "He's sending them off to find the statue, and his blood is their reward."
"What a dick," said Tim.
Julian pulled back into the alley. "He's got the vial on him. Let's pretend we've got the statue, and I'll see if I can't use Diplomacy to get him to give up the blood first, like a measure of good faith or something. I'd rather drink it from a vial than bite into him."
"Oh," said Cooper. "I was thinking we'd just stab him and you could lap up the blood off the street."
"I'm still liking the vial option better."
Tim kept watching until Colin's newest marks skulked away, the two lucid ones clutching bloody handkerchiefs around their wrists.
"He's alone!" Tim whispered. "Now's the time."
"Would you mind staying behind for a minute?" Julian asked Dodwynn. "I'd like to try to settle this without a fight. You can put your vengeance off for another minute, can't you?"
"My brother, Baelrick. He was a good dwarf. He would want you to be free of this curse."
Julian nodded, took a step forward, then stopped. "Of course, if things do turn violent, feel free to jump in."
Dodwynn grinned, though Tim suspected the streaks running down the sides of his face consisted of more than rain. "Aye, lad. You can count on it."
Julian looked under his serape. "Ravenus, I need you to keep still."
"Still, sir?"
"As still as a statue."
"Ah, I see, sir." He nodded his head once, then became as rigid as if he'd been carved out of wood.
Julian covered his bird and addressed the group… specifically Cooper. "I do the talking. Got it?" After everyone nodded, Julian led them out into the street.
Colin was sitting on a crate in the alley, smoking a pipe. The second story of the building he sat next to was built slightly wider than the first. The overhang kept him out of the rain.
When the group was halfway across the street, Colin looked up, startled. He stood quickly and tapped out his pipe against the wall, as if it was the high school principal who had just caught him smoking.
Julian halted and raised his hands slowly.
Colin's face relaxed into a smirk. "I wasn't expecting to see you boys again… so soon."
Julian lowered his hands. "We don't like to waste time running other people's errands."
Cold. Businesslike. Not Julian's normal M.O., but Tim could see it being an effective diplomatic strategy.
Colin pulled down his hood and stepped out into the rain. He still had a scratch on his face that Tim thought he remembered Ravenus giving him. His smirk was gone.
"Do you have the statue?"
Julian tapped the bulge beneath his serape on his left breast. "Do you have the vial?"
Something was strange. One thing Tim was pretty sure about was that lycanthropes could only be harmed by silver or enchanted weapons. A bird claw wound should have healed almost instantaneously, unless… Ravenus was Julian's familiar. Did that make him magical? Did his claws count as enchanted weapons? That would be cool.
Colin pulled back the left side of his cloak about an inch, and raised his right hand as if he was going to grab something, but stopped short of doing so.
In turn, Julian pulled back the left side of his serape. A high-pitched screech and a storm of black feathers exploded out of it.
"NO!" Julian cried.
Colin yelped like a scared puppy, raising his arms to shield his face, but Ravenus was already on him, scratching and pecking and cawing.
"So," said Cooper. "The plan…?"
"Get him!" shouted Julian.
"Sweet!" Cooper bolted forward and tackled Colin to the ground, instantly pinning him in a sleeper hold.
"You… double… crossing… bastards!" Colin choked the words out.
"Where is the vial?" Julian demanded. Ravenus continued to flap and claw and peck.
"Take it!" said Colin. "It's inside my cloak!"
"Ravenus!" said Julian. "Stand down." The bird flew to Julian's shoulder, leaving Colin's face a blood-streaked mess. "You were supposed to stay put. Like a statue, remember?"
"Apologies, sir," said Ravenus. "You didn't fill me in on the whole plan. When you tapped me and opened your serape, I assumed it was a call to action."
"You're right," said Julian. "I should have been clearer. But look at that. You kicked his ass."
"I do what I can, sir."
Julian took a knee next to Colin. "Let's get this over with."
Cooper loosened his hold on Colin, but did not let go.
Julian reached under Colin's cloak and felt around until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a small glass vial of red liquid.
"Take it and go!" said Colin. "Leave me alone before I call for the Kingsgua—"
Cooper slapped a hand over Colin's mouth.
Julian unstoppered the vial and sucked down the contents. His face contorted like he had just bitten into a lemon. He looked closely at the vial. "This isn't blood." He glared down at Colin. "What the hell did I just drink?"
Cooper released his hold on Colin's face.
Colin spit a few times, no doubt trying to rid himself of the taste of Cooper. His eyes darted back and forth, like he was searching for an exit. "It's p-p-p-pomegranate juice."
"What the fuck, man?"
"That's good for you," said Cooper. "It's got, like, antioxygens and shit in it."
Julian glared down at Colin. "Are you expecting me to believe that the cure for lycanthropy is pomegranate juice?"
Colin shook his head. "No. I just used that because it looks like blood. It was all for show."
"Hmmm…" said Julian. "I guess I could just lick your face, but that would be weird."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Okay, here's the plan. Cooper, Dave, hold him down. Tim, give him a little jab in the neck with your dagger."
"Wait, WHAT?"
"I need your blood, right? Pomegranate juice just isn't going to cut it."
"No no no no no," said Colin, laughing shallowly. "You don't understand."
"What, exactly, don't I understand?"
"It was all a sham," said Colin. "The affliction, the cure. I made all of that up. I'm not even a werewolf."
"Bullshit," said Tim. "I saw you change."
"I did too," said Julian. "And I was pretty lucid."
"It was a simple Alter Self spell," said Colin. "I'm an apprentice wizard. My professor is a devout disciple of Yulu Hari. I thought if I could get that statue, you know…"
"That's what this whole scheme was about?" asked Julian. "You trying to impress your wizard professor?"
"I'm sorry," Colin pleaded. "Really, I am. But hey, nobody got hurt, right? No harm done. Please don't kill me."
Julian shook his head. "You're a good looking guy, Colin. You should have taken up sorcery."
Colin frowned. "I don't know how those two sentences are related to one another, but thanks."
"I don't know either, Colin. And you're welcome."
"Does that mean you're not going to kill me?"
Julian smiled. "Of course we're not going to kill you."
"You'll let me go then?"
Tim was impressed with the uncharacteristic streak of cruelty Julian was demonstrating. He didn't know what Julian had in mind, but he was pretty sure he was toying with this guy.
"Sure," said Julian. "We'll let you go, but we'd like to introduce you to a friend we met along the way." He turned toward where Tim and Dave were standing and waved them aside.
Tim hadn't realized that Dodwynn had been standing right behind them.
"Dodwynn!" said Colin, trying to mask his panic. "I didn't think you… Where's your brother?"
"You two have obviously got some catching up to do," said Julian. "We'll just leave you to it."
Dodwynn stared gravely at Colin. "You promised my brother some of your blood. I'm here to collect."
Julian relaxed his cold, hard demeanor. "Would you mind giving us some time before you settle up? I really don't want to see or hear any of this."
"Don't worry about that, elf." Dodwynn cracked his knuckles. "I'm planning on taking me time with him. I've got a place in mind where no one will hear him."
Julian winced. "Yeah, see, I'd rather not know anything like that either."
Dodwynn looked down at Colin. "On your feet, boy."
Cooper released Colin, who promptly scrambled to his feet toward the alley.
Dodwynn kicked him in the ass before he had his balance, and Colin's face smashed down hard into the wet cobblestones. Dodwynn looked at Tim, raising his hand to his eyebrow in a casual salute. "I thank you again, halfling. Now you boys run along. I got this under control."
Tim didn't need to be asked twice. He did an about face and started walking away. It wasn't long before his friends caught up to him.
"Do you guys feel right about leaving that guy to be torture-murdered?" asked Dave.
"Absolutely," said Tim.
"Fuck him," said Cooper.
Julian said nothing, so Dave started up again.
"I expect that from Tim and Cooper. But I'm a little surprised at you, Julian."
Julian stopped in his tracks. "I didn't see you jumping in to save the day."
"Hey hey," said Dave, raising his hands defensively. "I'm not accusing you. You're right. I didn't help the guy either."
When Julian started walking again, Dave finished his thought. "Of course, I also didn't deliberately serve him up for the slaughter."
"You know what?" said Julian. "Screw you, Dave. I was angry, yeah. And if we had more time, I might have tried to talk Dodwynn out of killing the guy, or at least doing it quickly. But I had a decision to make."
"If we had more time?" Dave scoffed. "Where the hell do we have to be at this hour?"
"I had to choose between hanging out and reasoning with Dodwynn, or trying to catch up to those elves Colin just sent to the temple."
"Aw fuck," said Cooper. "Is that where we're going? I'm tired, and I need a drink."
Dave folded his arms incredulously. "It sounds like you're rationalizing to me. Were you really thinking that at the time, or is this something you're pulling out of your ass right now?"
"You'll be pulling my foot out of yours if you don't shut up."
"I'm with Cooper," said Tim. "Those guys are assholes. I'm exhausted, and wet, and sober. That's just no way to feel. Let's give them some credit, huh? They're probably not as stupid as we are."
"You think?"
"Sure. They'll take one look at that skull tree, and decide to come back to town for reinforcements. Or maybe they'll just decide to cope with lycanthropy – build a cage, buy some manacles, whatever – and be pleasantly surprised in a month."
Julian tugged on his ears. "I guess it could play out that way. That makes more sense than just charging unprepared into a temple full of grimlocks."
A bell rang out from a nearby tavern. Last call. Tim tried not to look too hopeful.
"Heck," Julian continued rationalizing. "They might even know what phase the moon is in, and know that they have a full month to prepare. Or they might have horses. We probably wouldn't catch up to them. They could be anywhere. I still feel kind of bad though."
"I've got a cure for that," said Tim. "Let's hurry before they close the bar." |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | The Land Before Tim | "Where the fuck are we?" said Tim. It was not an unusual question for him to ask upon waking up in the morning, but the potential answers were usually limited to piss-filled gutters outside taverns in the city of Cardinia. He couldn't recall ever waking up on a bed of giant ferns.
The air smelled of sea-salt and… "Eggs?"
Tim stood and oriented himself toward the scent and sizzle of frying eggs. Even jumping, he wouldn't be able to see over the ferns. Being a halfling sucked. He struggled for a few meters through the dense vegetation until he emerged onto a white, sandy beach.
"Hey!" said Dave. "You're up." He was bare-chested, pale, and hairy. His dwarven man-tits poked out from either side of his beard like fish eyes, jiggling in the tropical sunlight.
Tim averted his eyes. "Jesus, dude. Where the hell is your armor?"
"Cooper and Julian are using my breastplate to cook with."
Tim looked past Dave. Halfway between the jungle and the sea, Cooper and Julian were tending a homemade stove. Rocks and sticks held Dave's breastplate above a small fire. Where Dave's tits would normally reside, a gooey yellow substance bubbled. Julian stirred it with a stick.
"Where are we?" Tim repeated now that there were people around to answer. "How did we get here?"
"Fuck," said Cooper. "He's still drunk." He pulled his finger out of his snout. "Listen, buddy. We've been magically transported into the Caverns and Creatures world. Don't freak out, dude, but you're a halfling."
"I know that, shithead," said Tim. "I'm not talking about this world. I'm talking about this goddamn beach."
"Oh right," said Cooper. "Fuck if I know."
"Go wash your hands."
Cooper stomped toward the water, leaving giant half-orc footprints, and a turd, in his wake.
Tim clapped his hands over his face, trying to contain his massive headache. Julian was still tending the eggs. "Do you know anything about this?"
"I've been trying to figure it out," said Julian. "What do you remember from last night?"
Tim thought hard. "We went out to that new tavern."
"I keep telling you guys we need to stop doing that," said Dave.
Tim looked back at him and winced. "Could you maybe spread your beard out to cover your nipples? I'm feeling kinda rough this morning."
Julian poked some of the cooked egg on the edge into the still-liquid center. "I don't remember that much. I was already pretty trashed when we left the Whore's Head."
"Which we absolutely shouldn't have done," said Dave.
"Dude," said Tim. "You're not helping." Memories teased his brain, like they were apprehensive about returning. "Why did we leave the Whore's Head anyway?"
Dave rolled his eyes. "You and Cooper kept going on about A Quest for Big Titties."
Tim laughed. "Oh yeah. I remember that. Did we see any?"
"I don't think so. The new place was a total sausage fest."
"We should try to introduce the concept of Ladies' Night to this world," said Julian.
Tim focused on Dave's forehead to avoid looking at his hairy man-boobs. "You've got a high Constitution score. Do you remember anything else?"
"You spent most of the night making out with a dwarf in the corner."
"Oh Jesus," said Tim. He pulled a blonde hair out of his mouth as a vague recollection started to form in his mind. "She had a fucking beard, didn't she?"
"Most dwarven women do."
Tim tried to shake the memory out of his head. It only became clearer. "Was she at least hot by dwarf standards?"
"Nah," said Dave. "She was pretty dumpy. I wouldn't have touched her with Cooper's dick."
"How could you let me do that? Where the fuck were you guys?"
"Cooper and I got caught up in a drinking contest with a table of wizards."
"That sounds bad."
"It was fucking epic!" said Cooper, returning from the sea.
"Cooper," said Tim. "I want you to think real hard. Did you say anything to piss off those wizards? Anything, for instance, that might make one of them want to teleport you and your friends to an uncharted island?"
"No way," said Cooper. "Those dudes thought I was hilarious."
"Come on, Cooper," said Tim. "We didn't get lost on the way home and wind up on a fucking beach. I need you to put all seven points of your Intelligence score to work here. Are you absolutely sure you didn't say anything to offend any of them?"
"Well that one guy with the forked beard got a little bent out of shape when I made a crack about him bringing his grandma out to the bar."
"You said what?" Dave was actually a shade paler. "To Boswell the Grand?"
"I don't know," said Julian. "As far as Cooper jokes go, that sounds pretty tame."
"I know, right?" said Cooper. "I was on fire last night. And of course everyone's going to laugh the hardest at some lame, throwaway joke. Fucking Philistines."
"Dude," said Dave. "That wasn't his grandma. That was his wife."
"Oh," said Cooper. "I can see now how that was unintentionally hilarious."
"Jesus Christ, Cooper," said Tim. "What the fuck were you thinking?"
"I don't know. You'd think a guy named Boswell the Grand might be able to do a little better for himself."
"He's an elf," said Julian. He smacked himself on the forehead as realization dawned on him. "She's human. That's why she's aging so much faster than he is. No wonder he took it so hard. That's like making bald jokes in a cancer ward."
"You need to keep your big stupid mouth shut, Cooper!" Tim shook his head. "Man, you really fucked us over good this time."
"Well maybe you should have told me that last night," said Cooper. "But you were wrist deep in dwarf snatch."
"Wha?" said Tim. "Did I…?"
Dave gave him a sympathetic nod.
Tim sniffed the fingers on his right hand. He wasn't certain what they were supposed to smell like, given the standard of hygiene in this world, but he was pretty sure they were a little off. "I've got to… I'll be right back."
"Hurry up," said Julian. "The egg's almost done."
Tim ran as fast as his tiny legs would take him toward the sea. He deftly leaped over Cooper's turd and dove headfirst into the salty water. He grabbed a handful of wet sand and scrubbed the shame and dried vag-juice from his right hand. He gargled salt water a little too eagerly and wound up swallowing some. His body was quick to reject the seawater, sending it, along with whatever he had eaten and drunk the night before, exploding out of his mouth.
When he was done vomiting, he rested on his hands and knees, tears in his eyes and salty snot dripping from his nose, thankful that he was a million miles away from the scene of his indiscretion. There were no camera phones in this world. All he needed was some good booze, and he could forget he ever… he wasn't quite sure just how far he'd gone last night. He scooped up another handful of wet sand, reached into his pants, and scrubbed his crotch clean as well. Can't be too safe.
After his genitals were scrubbed raw, Tim began to feel better about the events of the night before. So he'd hooked up with an ugly dwarf. He'd probably had lower points in his life. He knew for a certainty that Cooper had. The guys wouldn't be able to bust his balls too bad over this. And as for her, she would soon be a distant memory. Just lay low at the Whore's Head for a few weeks, and he'd never have to see her hairy face– Why were there four people standing around the fire? Cooper was easy to pick out. Julian was still tending the eggs. Dave was still shirtless. The fourth one looked like Dave in stature and girth, but had blonde hair and slightly bigger tits.
Dave pointed at Tim. Tim stopped in his tracks. With nothing but sparkling blue sea and sandy white shore, there was nowhere to hide. He wished Cooper's turd was bigger so that he might cower behind it. He was stuck, defenseless, trapped. The she-dwarf looked at him and smiled, a gap between her two front teeth wide enough for Ravenus to fly through. Tim wanted to throw up again, but he had nothing left to give.
He looked down at his right hand and whispered, "You've been in that creature's cavern."
"Hi, Tim!" Her enthusiasm made Tim's testicles shrivel. What the hell was she doing here?
"Um… Hi,…"
Her smile faltered. "Gilda."
"I know. I'm sorry. Still a little drunk is all." He had no choice but to keep walking toward her. He felt like the Millennium Falcon being pulled toward the Death Star. He glanced at each of his friends, looking for a snicker. To his surprise, everyone's face was blank. They were all either too curious or hungry to care about Tim's involvement with this she-beast. "What are you doing here?"
"I challenged that wizard to a duel for sending you away from me," said Gilda. "He laughed and sent me after you."
Tim buried his face in his hands. This was so much worse.
"What's wrong with your arm?" asked Gilda.
"Huh?" said Tim, looking at his right arm. It was scraped pink and raw almost up to his elbow. He'd been pretty aggressive with the sand. "Oh, that's nothing. Just a rash."
Gilda swallowed hard. "Nothing contagious, I hope."
Tim panicked. "Wait! What? No! It's not… um… It's nothing, really."
It became obvious that Dave, Julian, and Cooper had been holding their laughter and ridicule back in an effort to be decent human beings, or whatever. The walls started to crumble as snorts of laughter burst through the cracks.
Gilda's face turned red.
Julian covered his laugh with a fake cough. "Who wants eggs?"
"Me!" cried Tim. Food and an exit from that conversation were just what he needed.
"I made some spoons out of bamboo," said Dave. "They're nothing special, but they should work." He held up four five-inch lengths of bamboo, the end of each cut diagonally.
Julian nodded. "Well done, Dave." He kneeled on the ground and smothered the fire with sand.
Dave passed spoons to Julian, Cooper, and Tim before frowning at Gilda. "I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting company." He fumbled with the spoon in his hands for a bit, then offered it to her. "Here, take mine."
"I'll just share with Tim, thanks." She waddled into Tim's comfort zone while Cooper kept his lips shut as tight as a frog's asshole. He looked like he was about to explode. Fortunately, his release came from the other end.
"Jesus, Cooper!" said Dave. "We're about to eat, man!"
Tim had never been so relieved to bask in a cloud of Cooper's ass vapor. "Here," he said to Gilda, offering her his spoon. "You have your fill first."
"I couldn't."
"Okay then." Tim had been as gentlemanly as he was prepared to be. He scooped up a spoonful of egg and shoved it into his mouth. It was warm and wonderful. "This is fantastic," he said to Julian through his full mouth. "Where did you get the eggs?"
"Egg," Julian corrected him. "Ravenus found it and Cooper climbed up the tree to get it."
Tim swallowed the egg in his mouth. "What do you mean, it? There have got to be more than a dozen eggs in here."
"No," said Julian. "Just the one. We would have had more, but Cooper broke all the others when he fell through the nest."
"Birds are shitty builders," said Cooper. "I almost broke my ass."
"How big was this egg?" asked Tim.
Julian picked something up off the ground. It looked like a deflated basketball. "This is the shell."
"Holy shit, man!" said Tim. "That's big enough to fit over Cooper's head."
"Sweet!" said Cooper. "Hand it over."
Julian shrugged and gave Cooper the empty leathery eggshell.
"I'll cut some eyeholes in it, draw some flames on the side. This will be my alter ego. El Cupo."
Tim shook his head. "Come on, guys. Think about this. Can you imagine a bird passing Cooper's head through its vagina?"
"I guess I could," said Julian. "But ew."
"Do birds have vaginas?" asked Gilda.
"Good question. Ravenus?"
"Yes sir?"
"Oh right, sorry. Do birds have a vagina?"
"This isn't important right now," said Tim.
"It's important if you want Cooper to put his head in one."
"What's a vagina, sir?"
"Hmm…" said Julian. "How to explain. It's the female reproductive… orifice? I don't like that word."
"Tell him it looks like Dave's face when he yawns," suggested Cooper.
"The vagina is the whole organ," said Gilda. "Not just the orifice."
"Sorry," said Julian. "My sex-ed teacher was a nervous gym coach."
"It's like a cloaca then, is it?" asked Ravenus.
"I guess?"
"Fine!" said Tim. "Then imagine a bird that could pass Cooper's head through its cloaca. How big –"
"What the fuck is a cloaca?" asked Cooper.
"It's like a vagina," said Julian. "But for birds."
"Then why don't they just call it a vagina?"
"I tried to explain," said Gilda. "The vagina is the whole organ. It extends from the uterus to –"
"Yeah, yeah, to Tim's elbow," said Cooper. "We've got it."
Everyone stopped eating. Gilda stood, horrorstruck and open-mouthed, staring at Cooper.
Tim had suffered through some awkward silences before, but this one seemed to last forever. He looked at Julian and mouthed the word Diplomacy.
Julian raised his eyebrows as if to say How the fuck is Diplomacy going to fix that?
Julian's eyebrows had a point. Diplomacy was just about as likely to help as murdering a horse would, but Tim would still reserve the latter option as a backup plan. Tim raised his own eyebrows back at Julian to convey the message, Come on, man. At least give it a try.
Julian pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows. The message was clearly Goddammit! But instead of turning to Gilda, he turned to Cooper.
"Also," Julian squeaked. He cleared his throat. "Both male and female birds have a cloaca, so it's not really synonymous with vagina at all."
Brilliant. If all parties agreed to pretend Cooper hadn't spoken, the slate could be wiped clean. Or at least covered over with a tarp or something.
Tim followed Julian's lead. "Let me just make my point. I shouldn't have beaten around the bush."
Cooper snorted. "I don't think anyone would accuse you of doing that after –"
"I will fucking end you!"
"Sorry."
Tim took a deep breath. "Here it is. Something pretty fucking big must have laid those eggs, right? What if it comes looking for vengeance?"
Dave hurriedly shoved another spoonful of egg into his mouth, like he might not have much more time.
Julian's eyes widened. "Holy shit, you're right!"
Cooper licked his lips. "We'd eat like fucking kings!"
Tim pulled at his hair and sighed. "Yeah, we would… or it would."
Dave licked the tip of his finger and touched his breastplate. Judging it cool enough, he tossed his spoon aside and started shoveling egg into his mouth with his bare hands. Tim suspected he was less concerned with eating at this point, and more concerned with getting his armor back on.
"Dude, relax," said Cooper. "I don't care how big it is. We can handle a fucking bird."
"But what if it's not a bird?" said Tim. "This is C&C. What if it's a dragon?"
"Whoa!" said Julian, taking a step back.
Dave paused from his frenzy to glance up at the sky.
Even Cooper seemed to finally pick up on the gravity of what Tim was saying. He frowned for a second, and then joined Dave in a race to gobble up the most egg.
"Wait a minute," said Julian. "Do dragons live in nests?"
It was a good question. A nest seemed like kind of a humble abode for one of the most prominent creatures in the game. "I don't know."
Dave and Cooper stopped eating. Everyone turned to Gilda.
Gilda nervously wiped at her beard like she thought she might have had a piece of food stuck in it. "What? Why are you all looking at me?"
"We thought maybe you knew something about dragons," said Julian.
"Why would you think that?"
"Well, because you're from here."
Gilda looked at Julian as if he'd just yodeled his last sentence. "I don't even know where here is! I'm from the Griffon Valley."
"I'm sorry. I should have been clearer. What I meant was –"
A sound erupted, like a thousand screaming Ravenuses, from above the jungle trees. It might have been avian. It might have been reptilian. It was certainly pissed off.
"Ravenus?" said Julian. "Can you translate that?"
"It's a dialect I'm unfamiliar with, sir. It almost sounds like –"
"I'll translate for you," said Tim. "It said 'What the fuck happened to my eggs?' Head for the trees now!"
Tim led by example, racing up the beach toward the treeline, his feet pounding into the hot white sand. He'd only run about five yards when a shadow passed over him. He had to know. He stopped running and looked up.
"HO," said Julian.
"LEE," said Dave.
"FUCKBALLS," said Cooper.
Everyone but Gilda, who kept running toward the trees, stood mesmerized by the creature gliding out over the water. Its head was narrow, crested at the top, and at least as long as the rest of its body. As it banked over the water, sunlight shone through its translucent, pink, bat-like wings, which had a span of at least thirty feet.
Tim felt a zeal for life that he hadn't felt since childhood. Every indignity he'd ever suffered, every endeavor he'd ever abandoned, every asshole he'd ever served a bucket of fried chicken to. None of that mattered now, because he was looking at a goddamn dinosaur.
"What are you fools doing?" cried Gilda. "Run!"
Tim snapped out of his fascination. The pteranodon had arced completely around and was flying back toward them. More specifically, toward Dave, who was still trying to scrape egg out of his breastplate. It opened its mouth like a giant pair of scissors and repeated its terrible, prehistoric scream.
"Drop the armor and run!" Tim shouted.
Dave dropped his armor, but he didn't run. Instead, he picked up his mace. That was probably for the best. Dave couldn't outrun a three-legged cow. There was no way he'd outrun a giant flying reptile.
"Shit!" Cooper unstrapped his battleaxe and ran toward Dave.
Tim started running around toward the water. He'd miss the first pass, but hopefully he'd be able to line up a pretty good crossbow shot when it swooped down at Dave a second time.
"Magic Missile!" said Julian. A white bolt of energy hit the creature just before it reached Dave, sending it crashing into the sand.
Cooper slowed down to a jog. "What the fuck?"
"Oh yeah!" said Julian. "Magic Missile for the win!"
"That's some bullshit," said Cooper. "No wonder those fuckers are extinct."
The pteranodon sprang back to life, crawling surprisingly quickly toward Dave on its feet and wings like some ungodly combination of pelican and tent. For all Tim knew, Julian's Magic Missile hadn't hurt it at all. It was just a clumsy flyer.
Sand flew in every direction as the pteranodon closed in on Dave, snapping its massive beak. Dave helplessly stumbled backwards, shielding his eyes.
Cooper started running again, and Tim approached as stealthily as he could from behind. The crossbow was his preferred weapon to deal with monsters that could bite him in half if he got too close, but with all the sand flying around, he might just as easily hit Cooper or Dave. Tim set his crossbow down, unsheathed his dagger, and hoped that what he was about to do wasn't an extremely stupid mistake.
Dave screamed and dropped his mace as the pteranodon bit down on his right forearm.
Cooper ran at it with his battleaxe raised over his head. "Back to the tarpits with you, fossil fool!" He caught a facefull of sand and fell to his knees. "Fuck!"
Confident that his bare feet on the sand couldn't make more noise than Dave's screams or Cooper's swearing, Tim sprinted at the pteranodon and leapt onto its back.
"Sneak attack, motherfucker!" He grabbed the bony crest at the top of the creature's head and stabbed it in the side of the face with his dagger.
The pteranodon shrieked, letting go of Dave, and spread its great wings.
"Shit!" said Tim, wishing it had occurred to him that the beast might try to flee, and the possible ramifications that might have for him. He shoved the crest back and forth like the gearshift of a stubborn car, slamming the creature's beak down repeatedly on Dave's head.
"Hey, man!" said Dave. "Knock it off!"
The wings flapped down, and Tim felt himself ascend a couple of feet off the ground. He held on more tightly to the crest and wrapped his dagger arm around the pteranodon's neck in a stranglehold. "Help me!"
Another flap and another jolt upward. Tim was shit scared. He squeezed his arm around the pteranodon's neck even harder, and jerked its head from side to side with the crest. He wasn't sure what the desired outcome of the latter move was, but he was working with the tools he had at hand.
The third flap failed to take them any higher. That was good, but why—
"I've got his feet!" said Cooper. "Jump off!"
Fuck that. It was time to end this. Reassured by the fact that the creature was anchored to the ground, and Cooper's reminder that he could have jumped off at any time prior to now, Tim released his hold on the pteranodon's neck and plunged his dagger into its eye.
Its scream was deafening. It flapped harder, and Tim felt himself starting to ascend again.
"Come on, man!" Cooper shouted. "Just let go! I can't hold on much longer!"
Tim barely heard him. His head was pulsing with adrenaline and dinosaur bloodlust. He stabbed and stabbed, cracking cartilage and gouging soupy chunks of flesh, blood, and eye goo.
The pteranodon broke free of Cooper's grasp, and Tim was no longer tethered to the ground.
Stab. Stab. Stab. Where is that walnut fucking brain? Tim shoved his dagger as far as he could into the pteranodon's significantly widened ocular cavity and twisted its head around by the crest. His rage was beginning to give way to fear and exhaustion. "Just fucking die already!"
The pteranodon made a hard downward spiral, causing Tim to slip. When he leaned right, it straightened out. It was done. He'd killed the fucker. He was steering the dead beast as it glided to the ground.
"YEAH!" Tim cried, punching into the air with one hand and yanking the dead pteranodon's crest toward him with the other.
He was pretty far up. His friends on the beach didn't look quite so small as ants. Large cockroaches, maybe, and heading quickly toward squirrels as he rushed down toward them.
"Um… Hello there."
Tim jerked his head to the right. He hadn't been expecting company. "Ravenus?" He forced out a British accent. "What are you doing here?"
"Julian sent me here to see if I could be of any assistance. Frankly, I'm not sure what I'd be able to do."
"Got any tips for hitting the ground without dying?"
"Grow wings?"
"Thanks for the advice." Judging by the rate at which he was descending, Tim reckoned he was going to hit the ground hard. Not fatally hard, but it wasn't going to feel good. Unless… "I'll jump off."
"If you don't mind me saying so, sir. That sounds like a remarkably bad idea."
"Not now," said Tim, picturing the dismount in his mind. "Just before I land."
"Are you sure you're not still drunk, sir?"
It was a stupid idea, sure. But how many times in life does one get such an opportunity? With a combination of his Jump bonus, his high Dexterity score, and the fact that his style of landing wouldn't have any game consequences outside of potentially being awesome. If you can't do a backflip off the body of a dead pteranodon as you plummet to the ground, then what the hell are you even playing C&C for?
Tim felt an unnatural surge of confidence in his decision, as if the game itself was nodding its approval.
Keeping one hand firmly wrapped around the crest, Tim carefully got to his feet. His flight path should have him crashing just beyond where his friends were gaping up at him.
"Tim!" cried Dave. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Hang on, buddy!" said Cooper. "I'll catch you!"
Tim swatted the air with his free hand. "Get the fuck out of the way!"
Cooper stepped aside.
The ground was rushing at him, closer and closer.
"WOOOOOOOOOO!" Fuck.
Tim let go of the crest and pushed hard with his legs. The world somersaulted around him, then stopped suddenly as his feet planted into the hot sand. Perfect execution.
A second later, the dead pteranodon made a decidedly less graceful landing. Its lower beak, which had been hanging open, snapped back as it hit the sand, sending the rest of the creature tumbling crest over feet. Tim was relieved that he'd decided to bail. Even if he'd fucked up his own landing, it would have hurt a lot less than staying mounted would have.
He turned around to face his friends. "What wiped out the dinosaurs? Tim wiped out the dinosaurs!"
"I aborted a few," said Cooper. "Does that count?"
"Well done," said Julian.
"Actually," said Dave. "Pterosaurs aren't technically considered dinosaurs."
"Screw you, Dave. I'm a fucking meteor!"
"Very impressive." Gilda's voice from behind him sent a shiver up Tim's spine.
Dave and Cooper looked at their feet.
"I'm going to check on Ravenus!" said Julian, walking hurriedly past Tim toward the pteranodon carcass.
Tim would have preferred to face a pack of hungry tyrannosauruses than the tubby, bearded dwarf he'd so thoroughly explored last night. He turned around.
"Thank you." The words came out like he'd been drinking sand.
"I underestimated you," said Gilda. Her widely far apart eyes were sad. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have run."
"No!" said Tim. He already had enough guilt and shame on his plate. If she started crying, he'd just have to run into the ocean and hope sharks ate him before he drowned. "Running was the right thing to do. What I did was stupid."
"You're smart and brave." Her words hit Tim like a punch in the gut. These were not descriptors he was accustomed to hearing about himself back in the real world.
Tim looked down at the sand between his toes. "I'm not really all that smart. It's just in the game."
"I don't know what that means."
"Never mind."
"Start putting that high Intelligence score of yours to work," said Dave. "Try to think of a way out of here. If there are pteranodons around, this place is bound to be some kind of Lost World themed island, and that means –"
"I've got it!" said Tim. "We'll build a raft."
"Building a raft is hardly a novel idea for getting off an island," said Dave. "Why do you look so excited about it?"
"Because our raft is going to be awesome. We can use the pteranodon wings for sails. Its head will make a good rudder, and we can eat the rest of it as we go. All we need to do is –"
"We don't even know where we are," said Gilda. "Why don't we just use the portal?"
Tim halted the part of his brain that was busily constructing a dino-powered escape boat. "What portal?"
Gilda folded her arms across her chest. "You really don't remember anything about last night?"
Tim averted his eyes. "Bits and pieces."
"You don't remember telling Boswell the Grand that you were going to 'pop a bolt in yo ass' if he didn't bring your friends back?"
"I went gangsta?"
Cooper nodded approvingly. "Pop a bolt. I like it."
Gilda shook her head. "He said we were all acting disgraceful."
Cooper snorted. "He kind of had a point with you two."
Gilda glared at Cooper. She looked like she was deciding whether to cry or kick him in the junk.
"Shut the fuck up, Cooper," said Tim. "Go on, Gilda. What about the portal?"
"He said a nice long walk would sober us up. He said there's a portal leading back to Cardinia on the other side of this island."
Tim rubbed his hands together. "Okay, cool. So let's get to the other side of the island and find this portal. Should we stick to the beach, or try to cut through the jungle?"
"I like the beach," said Gilda. "Now that we know pteranodons are relatively harmless. We can always retreat into the ocean if anything bigger comes after us."
"Relatively harmless?" said Dave. "That thing nearly ripped my arm off!"
"It doesn't look so bad to me."
"That's because I used two healing spells!"
Tim put his hands on his hips. "That pteranodon probably wouldn't have bothered us if you idiots hadn't gone and destroyed all of her eggs. I'm with Gilda."
Gilda's scornful look at Cooper evaporated as she jerked her fat head toward Tim.
Shit. "I mean, I like her beach idea. The circumference of the island is longer than the diameter, but we'll cover it faster on the sand than we will in the jungle."
"What if the island isn't circular?" asked Dave. "What if it's sausage shaped? We might be on the other side in an hour by cutting across it, rather than spend days walking around it."
"It's safer on the beach," said Tim. "We can spot danger from farther away, and I'd rather face another pteranodon on the beach than a stegosaurus in the jungle."
"Stegosaurus was an herbivore."
"That doesn't mean he won't fuck your shit up," said Tim. "I don't think he evolved that spiky tail to use as a salad fork. Anyway, what if the island is sausage shaped, and we're at one end of the sausage? Then we'll have eliminated virtually none of the distance, but increased our travel time by three or four hundred percent. Without knowing the layout of the island, our best bet is –"
"What if we knew the layout of the island?" Dave was wearing his sudden revelation face.
"What?" said Tim. "Did Boswell give you a map?"
"We don't need a map," said Dave. He looked past Tim. "We've got a Ravenus."
Tim slapped himself on the forehead. "Why don't these things ever occur to me?" He turned around to face the dead pteranodon. Julian was watching Ravenus gorge himself on the eye that Tim hadn't gouged out. "Julian! Get over here! Bring your bird."
"I'm going to go scrub the rest of the egg out of my armor," said Dave.
"I'll give you a hand," said Gilda. She walked after Dave.
Tim watched the two dwarves walk off together. It would be a real weight off his back if Gilda fell for one of her own kind. Was that a horribly racist thought to have? Probably, but it would still be a huge relief.
"What's up?" asked Julian.
"We need to figure out the layout of the island," said Tim. "Ravenus, do you think you could scout the island for us?"
Ravenus let out a small belch. His face was sticky with eyeball goo. "You're speaking gibberish again, sir."
"Oh, right. Sorry." Tim repeated his request in a British accent. "We need to know the shape and size. And let us know if you spot any dinosaurs, or anything else you think we might want to know about."
"Like eggs?"
"No!" said Tim. "Leave the eggs alone! I mean like terrain features that might facilitate or hinder our trek across the island. Rivers, mountains, magical portals, that sort of thing."
"One of those things sounded decidedly different, sir."
Julian wiped some of the goo off Ravenus's face with the edge of his serape. "Just do your best, buddy."
"Right-O, sir!"
It took Ravenus a few sluggish flaps to lift himself into the air. Pteranodons have big eyes. Tim, Julian, and Cooper watched him until he disappeared over the trees.
"Hey," said Tim. "Thanks for not giving me too much shit about last night."
"Don't sweat it, dude," said Cooper. "I've done worse in my day."
Tim glared at Cooper. "I wasn't talking to you, fuckhead! You need to keep your goddamn pie-hole shut. That hairy she-beast has feelings!"
"That was touching," said Julian, pretending to wipe tears from his eyes. "Your humanity is an inspiration to us all."
"What the fuck are you guys even talking about?" asked Cooper. "I was just joking. I'm not any worse to her than I am to any of you."
"I'm talking about empathy," said Julian.
Cooper rolled his eyes. "Here we go."
"Don't you roll your eyes at me. You need to hear this. I'm talking about considering how your words affect other people. Yeah, it's fine for you to bust our balls. We all know each other and have an established rapport, and so nobody takes what you say to heart. But you don't know that dwarf girl. She looked really hurt by some of your jokes. You have to consider what kind of life she's led that would culminate in her all but screwing a midget in the middle of a crowded tavern."
"Halfling," said Tim.
"And giving Tim shit about it is even worse. Think of the context. She's not the prettiest girl in the world. She's probably been getting dumped on for that her whole life. You're not laughing at Tim for the act itself, but instead for the girl he's doing it with. That only multiplies the shame and humiliation she feels. And don't give me that low Intelligence and Charisma score excuse. I know you're capable of empathy. I've seen it in you. I want you to think about that, okay?"
Cooper exhaled through pursed lips. "Yeah, okay."
The sullen silence which followed only lasted a minute before Ravenus returned.
"Ready to report, sir!" he said just before crashing into the sand. "Oh dear. Seems I'm a bit heavier than I'm used to."
"That was fast," said Julian.
"It's not a terribly large island, sir. You might walk across it in a day."
"What shape is it?" asked Tim, remembering to use the Elven tongue.
"It's roughly circular."
Tim nodded. "That's it then. Beach it is."
"Not so sure about that," said Ravenus. "Eastward there's a thick lava flow. Probably not something you'd want to cross on foot."
"And to the west?"
"There's an inlet."
Julian squinted. "So?"
"So it's a lot more coastline to cover," said Tim. "We'll be walking west, and then doubling back east again." He looked at Ravenus. "It looks like Pac Man, right?"
"I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with the gentleman in question, sir."
Tim drew a left-facing Pac Man in the sand. "Is this about right?"
Ravenus bobbed his head. "The inlet isn't quite so triangular, and doesn't quite reach the center of the island, but you've got the gist of it."
"I say we head west along the coast for a couple of miles, then cut north by northwest through the jungle until we reach the coast here." He drew a line along his proposed path through Pac Man's lower jaw. "We'll take a break on the beach for lunch, and then head north by northeast to the northern most point of the island." He looked at Ravenus again. "You didn't spot any magic portals, did you?"
"No, sir. I'm afraid not."
"Dinosaurs?" asked Julian.
"I'm sorry, sir. The jungle canopy was too thick for me to make out any wildlife."
"Don't apologize, Ravenus," said Julian. "You done good."
"You might even find shelter at the mouth of the inlet," said Ravenus.
Julian raised his eyebrows. "Is there a cave?"
"No, it's more of a humanoid-built structure."
"Wait a minute," said Tim. "Are you saying there are other people on this island?"
"Cannibals," said Cooper.
"The Others," said Julian.
"What's it like?" asked Tim.
"It's very nice," said Ravenus. "It's made of wood. It has a lovely view of the beach, and an attractive vegetable garden in the front yard. It's not dissimilar to what you might find along the north end of the Bluerun River."
Tim stood up to give Ravenus a stern look. "Why wasn't that the first fucking thing you mentioned?"
"What's up?" asked Dave. Neither he nor Gilda appeared to shine with the afterglow of hot, sweaty dwarf sex. Pity. His armor, however, while still scarred with various dents and hoofprints, was shinier than it had ever been, scrubbed clean with sand and salt water.
Tim pointed down at his Pac Man map. "We're here. Ravenus says there's some kind of wooden, man-made structure here." He pointed at the top of Pac Man's head. "The magic portal leading back to Cardinia should be somewhere around here. I say we check out the house first. Maybe whoever lives there can lead us to the portal. You're the wise one, Dave. What do you think?"
Dave nodded slowly before speaking. "I think this is very good news."
"How's that?"
"That pteranodon was probably a one-off random encounter. Think about it. How long would you expect some rickety wooden shack to last if this place was crawling with dinosaurs?"
"That sounds reasonable," said Julian. "But we're in the game, and game logic doesn't always reflect real-world logic. What if that house is only there because Mordred drew it on a map without considering –" He froze.
"Without considering what?" asked Dave.
"Shut up for a second."
Dave folded his arms. "No, I won't shut up. If you're so keen to poke holes in my logic, at least –"
"Dude, shut the fuck up!" Julian's voice was a panicked whisper. "Did you feel that?"
Tim, Dave, Cooper, and Gilda looked at each other and shook their heads.
"There it is again!" said Julian. "Look at Cooper's piss!"
"Hey, come on, man," said Cooper. "You know I can't always hold it in. It's not my fault."
Julian waved for Cooper to stop talking as the group stared down at the puddle of urine around his left foot. "Just wait. Cooper, stand as still as you can."
A few seconds passed.
"This is making me very uncomfortable," said Cooper.
Just before the last of Cooper's pee disappeared into the sand, the surface of the puddle rippled.
Julian looked at Tim. "You don't think that means…"
Tim sighed. "Of course it fucking does."
"Holy balls," said Dave.
Tim followed the gaze of Dave's suddenly very wide eyes. About half a mile up the beach, a tyrannosaurus was waving its Volkswagen-sized head back and forth.
Tim, Julian, Dave, and Cooper froze like statues, as if they'd all been preparing for this moment since 1993.
"Let's go!" whispered Gilda, stepping toward the jungle.
"Stop!" said Dave.
"Why?" Gilda frowned at Tim. "You guys aren't thinking about trying to ride it, are you, like you did with the pteranodon?"
"Well I wasn't before," said Cooper.
"No!" said Tim. "The T-Rex can only see you if you move."
"Where did you hear that?"
"Just trust me, okay? Stand very, very still."
Gilda looked doubtful, but she nodded.
The tyrannosaurus sniffed the air, swung its massive head toward them, and roared like a stadium full of angry whales. If it was an ordinary breeze that blew their hair back in time with the roar, it was a hell of a coincidence.
The ground shook as one giant foot crashed into the sand in their direction. Then the other. Then more quickly.
"Okay," said Tim. "Fuck this. Let's go."
Not one of the others needed any further prodding.
"What happened to standing still?" asked Gilda as she ran alongside Tim.
"My source may not have been as reliable as I thought."
"These trees aren't dense enough to slow it down," said Julian. "We can't outrun it!"
"We don't have to," said Cooper. "We just have to outrun Dave!"
"Hey fuck you!" said Dave, waddling behind the rest of them.
The ground trembled in half-second intervals as Tim barreled over giant ferns.
"Keep running, sir," said Ravenus. "I'll handle the creature."
"You'll what?"
"Trust me, sir." Ravenus flew off in the opposite direction.
"Where the fuck is your bird going?" asked Cooper.
"He said he was going to handle the T-Rex."
Cooper snorted. "Sweet. Can I recommend that, for your next familiar, you choose something less stupid. Like, I don't know, a rock or a piece of toast or something?"
"Ravenus isn't stupid," said Julian, whipping branches out of his face as he ran. "And I don't sense any fear in him. He has a plan."
Julian had risked his life on more than one occasion to protect that stupid bird. The fact that he hadn't doubled back to fight a tyrannosaurus now was evidence that he had complete confidence in whatever plan Ravenus had concocted in his little bird brain. Tim only hoped that it didn't involve trying to choke the beast to death by flying into its trachea.
The tyrannosaurus roared again. It was closer this time, but the ground had suddenly stopped shaking.
Julian slowed to a jog, then stopped running altogether. Cooper, Gilda, and Tim stopped as well.
"He did it!" said Julian.
Tim searched Julian's face for signs of crushing despair, but Julian was smiling. Ravenus had clearly not gone with the trachea gambit.
Something smaller, but much closer, crashed through the tall ferns toward them.
"Shit!" said Cooper, readying his axe. Julian gripped his quarterstaff. Tim fumbled nervously while trying to load a bolt into his crossbow. Even Gilda, who Tim hadn't realized was armed, produced a dagger from her sleeve.
"Bwaah!" said Dave, stumbling into view as his companions all stopped just short of chopping, stabbing, shooting, and bludgeoning him.
"Oh shit, sorry," said Cooper. "I forgot you were behind us."
Dave stopped to catch his breath before answering. "Thanks a lot."
Tim exhaled, relieved that he hadn't been able to load his crossbow in time to shoot Dave. "Dude, I'm starting to think that armor is doing you more harm than good."
"What's going on?" asked Dave. "Why did we stop running?"
"Ravenus took care of the T-Rex," said Julian.
Another roar, and the ground started to shake again.
"The fuck he did!" said Dave, hurriedly waddling past the group.
The rest of the party soon overtook him, but Julian stopped again after about thirty feet.
"Wait," he said. "Stop."
Cooper stopped because he was stupid. Who knows why Gilda stopped. Tim stopped because he didn't fancy continuing to run into the dinosaur-infested jungle alone.
Dave caught up to them after a few seconds. "Why are we stopped again."
"Feel the tremors," said Julian. "They're getting fainter. The T-Rex is running the other way."
Gilda put her hands on the ground. "Hmm… maybe. How can you be sure?"
"Empathy," said Julian, looking at Cooper.
Cooper rolled his eyes. "Not this shit again."
"Empathy?" said Gilda. "With the tyrannosaurus?"
"No. With Ravenus. We share an empathic link. I can sense that he's quite pleased with himself right now."
"I still think we should keep moving," said Dave.
"I'm with you," said Tim. The musty jungle was alive with sounds that might have been monkeys or might have been velociraptors. He couldn't see past the ferns more than a few feet in any direction. "It's too claustrophobic in here. I feel like we're being watched."
"Bullshit," said Cooper. "You're paranoid because we just got chased by a dinosaur."
"As reasons for being paranoid go," said Julian, "that sounds like a pretty good one to me. So what do you think? Make for the shore, or make for the house?"
"The house," Gilda answered very abruptly. "The only protection the shoreline provides us is that we can see what's going to kill us from a little farther away."
"And what kind protection do you think a wooden house is going to provide?" asked Dave.
"Well we just don't know, do we? And not knowing sounds just a little bit better than certain death if you ask me."
"Sounds good to me," said Tim. "Let's move."
They continued walking in the same direction they had been going while running from the tyrannosaurus. Tim replayed himself running into the jungle in his mind, and he was pretty sure they were headed roughly north by northwest.
"What other kinds of dinosaurs do you think they have here?" asked Julian, like he was on a class field trip. "It'd be cool to see those ones that spit acid."
Tim jumped when he thought he saw a fern move in his periphery to his left. Looking in that direction revealed nothing. Just jumpy.
"You mean like the ones that killed Newman?" asked Cooper.
Julian laughed. "I think his name was Nedry in the movie."
"He'll always be Newman to me."
A twig snapped somewhere beyond the ferns to Tim's left. He was sure of it this time.
"Would you two just shut up about Wayne Knight for a minute?"
"Who the fuck is Wayne Knight?" asked Cooper.
"He's the actor who plays Nedry," said Dave.
"Newman," corrected Cooper.
"What are you all talking about?" asked Gilda.
"Nothing," said Tim. "Just everybody shut up for a minute. We're being followed." He raised his hands and stopped walking.
When the group stopped walking, it sounded like at least a small part of the background jungle noise fell silent.
Tim looked up at Cooper and pointed his hands in opposite directions. Cooper craned his neck to look left, then right over the ferns. He frowned and shook his head.
"Stay together," Tim whispered. "They're stalking us, waiting for one of us to fall behind for an easy kill."
"Who?" asked Gilda.
"Velociraptors."
"Sweet!" said Cooper.
"He's right," said Julian. "We need to get to that house ASAP."
"Don't you guys start running," said Dave, his voice shaking.
Gilda folded her arms. "Look at the lot of you, foolish men! You're working yourselves up into a frenzy over nothing. What makes you suspect we're being stalked?"
"We have our sources," said Tim.
"Is this the same source that told you a tyrannosaurus can only see you if you move?"
Tim looked at his feet. "Yes."
"You're all jumping at your own shadows. I'm not saying we're safe, but let's at least wait until there's a visible threat before we soil ourselves with fear."
Cooper grabbed a handful of ferns and reached under his loincloth. "I was hoping nobody noticed. That wasn't fear, by the way."
"Maybe you're right," said Tim, trying to convince himself that it was even a possibility. "But we should keep moving just the same."
They walked in silence after that, which only amplified every leaf rustle, frog croak, and bug click, each one threatening to stop Tim's heart. He wished they'd go back to talking about bullshit, but he dared not start up a conversation himself.
After about fifteen minutes, Tim's heart rate began to slow. Maybe Gilda had been right. Or maybe the raptors had given up on trying to separate them and moved on in search of easier prey.
"Look!" said Cooper.
Tim's heart nearly cracked his ribs. "WHAT?"
Cooper reached down with his shit-caked hands to grab him.
Tim ducked and tumbled away from Cooper's grasp. "Just tell me what you see."
"The jungle ends just up ahead," said Cooper. "And I can see the house."
Tim was tempted to let Cooper lift him over the ferns, but he resisted. His curiosity would soon be sated without him needing to smell like Cooper's bowels.
After a few hundred more feet, Tim finally broke through the last of the jungle undergrowth. A forest of stumps and scorched earth stretched out for another five hundred feet, leading to the house that Ravenus had discovered.
What Ravenus had failed to mention was the giant wooden fence surrounding the property. Tim guessed it was no coincidence that it was around the same height as a tyrannosaurus.
"I guess that explains how they keep the place free of dinosaurs," said Julian.
"No way," said Dave. "It's tall enough for sure, but it's just a latticework of wood and bamboo. A T-rex would tear that to splinters in a matter of seconds."
"And yet there it stands," said Julian, sounding slightly annoyed. "I don't know what else they'd need a fence that big for."
"Why bother with all of this speculation?" asked Gilda. "The important thing to do right now is to get on the other side of it. There's the gate. Let's go."
"Wait!" said Tim. "What about the velociraptors?"
Gilda sighed. "I thought we already established that there are no velociraptors."
"You established that. I'm not convinced. I still feel like we're being stalked."
"So you want to hang out here with them?"
"I'm just saying that maybe they haven't attacked us yet because they think they can still hide in wait for an opportune moment to strike. If we go out into the open, we deny them the ability to hide, and they might just go for broke and attack us before we make it to safety."
Gilda shook her head. "I think you're giving these imaginary stalkers of yours way too much credit. So what do you propose we do?"
Tim looked up at Cooper. "You're our fastest runner. Run like a motherfucker and see if that gate is unlocked. Julian and will cover you with Magic Missiles and my crossbow."
Cooper looked down at him and snorted. "Against velociraptors?"
Tim shrugged. "It's all we've got."
Cooper nodded. "Get your shit ready."
Tim raised his crossbow to eye level and scanned a path from the edge of the unmolested jungle to the gate. "On three. One… two… THREE!"
Cooper bolted like a racehorse out of the gate, his feet pounding the burnt ground. The cloud of disturbed ash he left in his wake made him look cartoonishly fast as he darted and weaved around tree stumps.
Tim remembered he was supposed to be watching for velociraptors and jerked his crossbow back toward the trees. Nothing had emerged from the jungle. He glanced back at Cooper, who had now made it halfway to the fence, then back at the jungle. Still nothing. When Cooper neared the gate and slowed down to a jog, Tim lowered his crossbow.
"Feel better now, dinosaur hunter?" asked Gilda.
Tim turned around. Gilda and Julian were grinning at him. Only Dave appeared to be appropriately nervous.
"You're not going to shame me for being cautious. We've been attacked by dinosaurs twice already, and I'm not about to let my guard down to –"
Something buzzed and crackled loudly. Tim looked just in time to see Cooper engulfed in a web of blue lightning emanating from the fence.
When the lightning disappeared, Cooper fell backwards, hitting the ground hard without even trying to brace himself.
"Shit!" cried Tim.
"Horse!" said Julian. A white horse speckled with brown spots appeared next to him.
"Don't waste all your spells on horses!" said Tim. "It's not that far a walk."
"I'm not wasting them all," said Julian. "Just this one."
"Real nice," said Dave. "Take off and leave the rest of us to get eaten by dinosaurs."
Julian glared down at Dave. "It's not for me, stupid. It's for you. Get over there and help Cooper."
Dave's face turned pink. "Oh, I'm sorry. I was just –"
"Just get your fat ass on the horse already."
Helping Dave mount a horse was normally a task reserved for Cooper. Without him, it took the combined efforts of Julian, Gilda, and Tim to shove Dave onto the animal's back.
Julian slapped the horse on the ass. "Go!"
Dave bounced in the saddle as the horse galloped toward Cooper, kicking up an even thicker cloud of smoky ash. Tim, Julian and Gilda ran behind, coughing their way through the cloud.
When they finally made it to Cooper and Dave, Cooper was sitting up, confused and disoriented, in a puddle of his own shit that radiated away from him like rays of the sun.
"I heal thee," said Dave.
Cooper shook his head and gently pushed Dave away. "I'm good."
"You'd better be. That was my last healing spell."
Cooper looked from the black claws on his right hand, to the quietly humming gate, to the base of the fence, which was littered with the charred and surprised-looking corpses of countless birds, frogs, and small mammals. They were all lined up neatly a foot away from the fence. A butterfly fluttered past his face toward the fence until it exploded in a tiny globe of blue lightning. Its wings vaporized instantly as its body turned to white ash and fell to the ground. "How the fuck do you electrify a wooden fence?"
"It's magic," said Julian. His eyes were glowing bright white. He was using a Detect Magic spell. "There's a powerful magical field surrounding the whole fence. It's about a foot thick on both sides."
Tim looked at Dave. "That would explain why the dinosaurs don't just knock it down. They can't get near it without getting the shit zapped out of them."
"You should have used the handle," said Julian, extending his hand cautiously toward the gate's handle. "There's a hole in the aura." Apparently satisfied that he wasn't going to kill himself, he reached all the way in, grabbed the handle, and turned it until it clicked. The gate swung open an inch toward him.
The group backed up like they were riding a shockwave, giving Julian plenty of room to swing the gate the rest of the way open.
Compared to the charred wasteland and dinosaur-infested jungle, the area inside the fence looked like a recreated Eden. There were fruit trees, a colorful vegetable garden, and separate pens for goats and pigs.
In the center stood a large, but quaint, wooden house, built eight feet above the ground, supported by four living trees. A retractable staircase, currently raised, would give the occupants some means of protection against all but the biggest dinosaurs if their fence ever failed them.
The house rested in its tree supports above what looked like a miniature version of itself, minus the porch. Judging by all the noise coming out of it, the smaller house at ground level was a chicken coop.
Julian held out some pieces of dried fig to one of the goats, which eagerly licked them right out of his hand. "Hey there. You're a hungry little guy, aren't you?"
"Why ain't you more upset about your stupid bird?" asked Cooper.
"Ravenus is fine."
"You're never away from that thing for more than five minutes at a time, and the last time you saw him was when he flew off to fight a fuckin' tyrannosaurus almost an hour ago. How can you be so sure he's fine?"
"I told you. Ravenus and I have an empathic link. If he was in trouble, I'd know. Right now I sense that, wherever he is, he's very content."
"Maybe he's fucking the T-rex."
"Don't be vulgar," said Julian. "He's probably just flying around, enjoying the tropical sea air." He patted the goat on the head and looked at the vegetable garden. "I love this place. This is exactly the kind of place I want to live in when I retire."
Tim thought of the Chicken Hut. Even after having stabbed a pteranodon to death, the concept of ever being able to retire was so foreign to him. He'd always pictured himself continuing to line the arteries of rednecks until his own tired old heart finally gave in to despair, and he fell face-first into the—
From just outside the gate, the all too familiar sound of screaming horse, accompanied by the snarl and growl of whatever was tearing said horse apart, ripped Tim away from his self-pitying thoughts. All but one of the chickens inside the coop immediately stopped squawking and clucking.
"Polly!" cried Julian, taking a step toward the gate.
Tim blocked his path. "Don't even think about it." As an afterthought, he added, "And stop naming them."
In order to close the gate, someone would have to go outside and carefully pull it back around so as to avoid getting electrocuted. That wasn't going to happen. Tim scanned the yard for a place to hide.
"Behind the chicken coop!" Tim analyzed his choice of hiding place while he led his friends there. It was as good a chance as they had. The coop was big enough for all of them to hide behind, and that one retarded chicken who didn't take the hint to shut up might actually end up doing them a favor. "When the raptor busts into the coop to eat all the chickens, that's when we make a break for it."
His back up against the wall of the chicken coop, Tim could hear the soft, nervous clucking of the occupants, with the exception of the one which was still squawking away without a care in the world. The rest of them sensed danger.
Gilda grabbed Tim's left hand with both of hers. Her skin felt like rhino hide. "I'm scared."
"I told you there were fucking velociraptors." Tim felt like he had just failed a Willpower saving throw, because as much as he knew he shouldn't peek around the side of the coop, he couldn't force himself to not do just that.
When one of the goats bleated, Tim took his chance. It was a raptor, all right. Unsurprisingly, it was just as terrifying in real life as it had been on the big screen. Fortunately, it was facing away from him, its cold, vicious eyes fixed on the goat Julian had been feeding.
Any giant murder-lizard would have been frightening enough, but when it took a step toward the goat, raising its foot above the potato plants which had been obscuring it from view, Tim was reminded of the most defining feature of the velociraptor; the giant, hooked claws on its feet. This one happened to be dripping with fresh horse blood as well, which didn't ease Tim's anxiety at all.
Tim gasped.
Realizing that he'd just gasped, he pulled his head back just as the raptor pivoted toward him.
"Is it a raptor?" asked Dave.
"Of course it's a fucking raptor."
Julian was tugging on his ears. "Did it see you?"
"I don't think so."
Tim strained to hear some clue as to what the dinosaur was doing. What he really hoped to hear was a goat scream, which would mean the raptor had lost interest in him. But all he could hear was that one goddamn chicken that still refused to shut the fuck up.
"Gods be damned!" came a deep male voice from the porch above them. British. Probably an elf. "Alonzo! Fetch my wand. We've got a velociraptor in the potato patch."
"How'd it get through the barrier?" another elven voice responded.
"From the looks of it, she just wandered in through the open gate."
Cooper narrowed his eyes. "Clever girl."
"Do be careful, Felix," said the voice that Tim assumed belonged to Alonzo. "I don't want to have to rub another salve into your skin."
"Indeed not!" said Felix. "I'd much prefer you to rub one out." The two men laughed heartily.
Tim, Cooper, Dave, and Julian stared slack-jawed at the floor above them.
"Well I'll be a mother fucker," said Cooper. "Those two are –"
"Tim!" cried Gilda. "Watch out!"
Tim turned his head to find himself staring into the nostrils of the velociraptor. It sprayed his face with a steamy bloodmist. Tim rolled away as a hooked claw sliced the air above him, taking a head-sized chunk out of the corner of the chicken coop.
The only sound that could compete with the sudden explosion of clucking was Cooper going into his Barbarian Rage.
"I'm really angry!"
The raptor took a swipe at Cooper, but Cooper caught it by the ankle and punched it in the face. The combination of Cooper's Rage-enhanced punch and being caught on one leg was enough to send the raptor tumbling to the ground.
It didn't stay down for long. The raptor leapt to its feet, shook its head, and gave Cooper a hard, scrutinizing stare. Cooper jerked his head to each side, cracking his neck, and stared back at his reptilian adversary.
The raptor screamed like a pack of jaguars. Cooper screamed back like a drunk rhinoceros.
Having demonstrated an equal capacity for verbal sparring, the two beasts lunged at each other. Even with Cooper's Rage-induced extra girth, the velociraptor outweighed him considerably. The two of them rolled out into the potato garden until Cooper, combining the force of his legs and the raptor's own inertia, kicked the dinosaur off of him and sent it flying into the magically electrified fence.
Blue electricity surrounded the raptor, crackling, hissing, but ultimately releasing it.
The upper right quarter of Cooper's back bled from a series of puncture wounds that looked like a butcher's diagram of where to cut the shoulder meat. The raptor's skin was patched with smoking electrical burns. They both took a moment to breathe.
"Finish it off!" Dave called through a cloud of feathers emanating from the hole in the corner of the chicken coop.
Tim held up his crossbow and tried to line up a shot, but a dwarf ass stepped into his line of fire.
"By Lothar's hammer!" Gilda had swiped Dave's mace, and was charge-waddling toward the injured raptor.
"Get out of the way!" cried Tim. There was no way she could have heard him over her own battle cry, and the continued squawking of the chickens, which were still losing their shit inside the coop.
A long whistle pierced through the air, rising and then lowering in pitch, like a slide whistle, bringing all action in the yard to a sudden halt. Gilda stopped running. The raptor turned its head. Cooper's body deflated. Even the chickens ceased squawking and clucking, except for that one.
Tim looked for the source of the sound. A blond elf stood in front of the goat pen like an oiled god or a cover model for a trashy elven romance novel. He was naked but for a dead black mink that hung from his waist. Its hind legs were splayed out like a Y along the top of his pelvis, the tail hanging forward like a furry phallus. Tim suspected his actual phallus was running down the animal's body, and couldn't help but wonder how far down it went toward the mink's head, which swung like a pendulum below his knees.
The mink wasn't the only small, furry mammal this elf was potentially violating. Armed with nothing but a brown hare, cradling it in his left arm and stroking it between the ears with his right hand, he stared intently at the velociraptor. He raised the hare to his mouth, whispered a single word in its ear, and set it gently on the ground.
Upon being released, the hare darted out of the gate like its ass was on fire. The raptor ran after it, slapping Cooper in the face with its tail on the way out.
"Greetings, travelers!" said the elf, whose voice Tim recognized as belonging to Felix. He placed his palm atop a wooden post which stood, seemingly purposeless, between the goat pen and the gate. The top of the post glowed with a pale green light, and the gate began to swing slowly around.
Feeling safe enough to emerge from the psychological protection of the chicken coop, Tim saw that the staircase on the porch was also sliding down.
"You must be Felix?"
"I am!" said Felix. "And how may I address the young lad with such fine ears?"
Tim's face became suddenly very warm. He tore his gaze away from the swinging mink head. "Any way but that, please."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Tim's fine," said Tim. "Look, I'm sorry about the damage we've caused."
"Think nothing of it! A few potatoes is no great loss. I only hope that raptor recovers from her wounds."
"Who gives a shit about the raptor?" said Cooper. "What about –"
"You can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats animals," said Gilda.
"Especially minks," Tim muttered a little louder than he'd meant to.
Felix flashed Tim a quick grin before addressing Gilda once again. "When you take away the trappings of man, the buildings and clothes and such, we're all beasts."
"I completely agree," said Gilda, looking up at him all doe-eyed.
Tim looked away, a cocktail of negative emotions bubbling up inside him. The beast under his clothes wouldn't be able to stuff a field mouse.
"Speaking of animals," said Felix. "Something seems to be amiss with one of our chickens."
"It's been squawking like that since we got here," said Dave.
Felix opened the front door of the chicken coop.
"Jesus!" shrieked Julian. "Stay out! Stay out!"
Everyone turned to look at him. He looked like he'd just seen the ghost of his naked grandmother.
"Hey man," said Tim. "Are you okay?"
"Huh?" said Julian. His eyes returned to normal and he looked down at Tim. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I don't know what came over –" His eyes darted up toward the chicken coop. "Ravenus!"
Tim turned around. Ravenus was hobbling unsteadily out of the coop like a drunk on the deck of a ship. The front of him was covered in white feathers. Reaching the entrance, he promptly fell face-first on the ground. He didn't even try to get up.
"Ravenus!" said Julian. "Are you hurt?"
"I'll be fine, sir," said Ravenus. "Just need a bit of a nap is all."
"What happened to you?"
"Seems I bit off more than I could chew, sir. That one in there's insatiable, she is."
Julian looked into the coop, then frowned down at Ravenus. "She's a little… huskier than what you usually go for, eh?"
Ravenus raised a wing. "Any port in a storm, sir." He looked at Tim. "Isn't that right?"
"Wha?" said Tim. Stupid fucking bird! He glanced at Gilda. Shit! Why did I do that? Gilda glared back at him. Abort! Abort! "I, um… I have to go to the bathroom."
"Very well then!" said Felix. He closed up the chicken coop and started walking toward the staircase. "Come inside. Make yourselves at home. We shall provide you with food, drink, and shelter for the night."
"That sounds fantastic," said Dave, wasting no time following Felix. Julian scooped up Ravenus, tucked him under his serape, and the rest of the group followed Dave.
Having reached the top of the stairs, Felix turned around. "And you can smoke my pole."
Tim, Dave, Cooper, Julian, and Gilda stopped simultaneously, like somebody hit the 'pause' button.
Dave turned around to face the rest of them and whispered conspiratorially. "How badly do you guys want to stay here tonight?"
Tim didn't like the idea of being torn apart and eaten by dinosaurs, but he wondered if he'd like gobbling this fucker's mink-meat even less. "Do we all have to smoke his pole?"
"No way," said Cooper. "I spent my birthday last year at the Lady Slipper, and wound up hitting big on one of the video poker machines at the bar."
Dave put his hands on his head. "And this is relevant how?"
Cooper ignored him. "So I walk out of the Slipper with a thousand bucks. It's my birthday. I'm feeling good, like the stars aligned or some shit, right? Naturally, I take my good fortune with me to Come to Papa's."
Tim grimaced. "That's the strip joint off 603?"
"That's right."
"The one made out of three FEMA trailers?"
"That's the one."
"What's a FEMA trailer?" asked Gilda.
"Come on guys," said Cooper. "Time is a factor here."
Tim nodded. "Just hurry up and get to the point."
"So I drop some cash, and get two of the less reputable strippers to come spend the night in a motel with me."
Julian shivered and hugged himself. "Are there really tiers of reputability among the strippers at Come to Papa's?"
"I thought I was going to be spraying jizz like Willy the Water Bug all night long."
Dave tugged on his beard. "What does any of this have to do with –"
"I'd been out of the game for a while, and I splooged as soon as the first girl put her hand down my pants."
Tim finally broke the unexpected silence to follow.
"Is that the end of your story?"
"Pretty much," said Cooper. "Those two bitches played chess while I tried to will my dick back to life. It wasn't happening. After thirty minutes, I just went home, broke, ashamed, and sticky."
Julian cocked an eyebrow. "They had a chess board at the motel?"
"The girls brought a travel set with them, like they'd been through this sort of thing before."
"Dude!" said Dave, twisting his beard. "Does this story have a point?"
"The point is that your brain chemistry – or whatever – changes right after you shoot your load. Like, you know when you whack it to the spring break pics that your cousin posts on Facebook, and then you feel so gross about it just after the fact?"
Tim, Julian, and Dave shared awkward, silent glances. Gilda just looked confused.
"Fuck you guys!" said Cooper. "I'm telling you, no matter how much heat that dude's packing in his fucking weasel-cannon, he's only got one round in the chamber. The rest of us will get a pass."
"So just what are you suggesting?" asked Tim.
"I don't know," said Cooper. "We draw straws, or play Rock Paper Scissors or some shit."
"And we never speak of it again," said Julian. He grabbed Cooper by the ear and looked square into his eyes. "You don't get to give anyone shit about this. You got that?"
Cooper yanked his ear out of Julian's grasp. "Yeah, I got it."
Dave was nearly pulling his beard out. He looked like he might be about to cry. "I don't want to smoke his pole."
Gilda sighed and looked up at Felix. "I'd be happy to smoke your pole."
"Nice try, Sugarnips," said Cooper. "But I don't think you're what he –"
"Outstanding!" said Felix. "Now all of you stop lollygagging on the stairs and come inside."
Julian grinned sheepishly. "That was unexpected."
"Gilda," said Tim. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."
"Dude, shut up!" said Dave. "Yes she does."
"It's okay," said Gilda, looking directly and deliberately into Tim's eyes. "I really really want to." She turned and continued walking up the stairs.
Tim skulked up the stairs behind the rest of the group, trying to reason with himself that this was a good thing. He was dodging a bullet, right? Why did he feel like he was losing a battle, on multiple fronts, in a war that he didn't want to be involved in?
"Is it weird if we want to watch?" asked Cooper.
The wood that the stairs were constructed from was as rough as the wood making up the outer fence and animal pens, but the porch and house proper were sanded smooth.
"Did you build all of this yourself?" asked Julian.
"Heavens no!" said Felix. "I have a partner. Alonzo. He's inside polishing his rod."
"Um…" said Dave. "If this is a bad time, we can –"
Felix waved his hand at Dave like he was trying to shake off a swarm of bees. "Don't be ridiculous! He'd love to show it to you." He slid the front door open. "Alonzooooo!"
Alonzo appeared from around a corner at the far end of the house, carrying a tray of coconut cups with little bamboo straws poking out of the tops. His curly, brown hair bounced on his shoulders in time with the spring in his step. He was rocking a 70's porn star handlebar mustache and a robe made of peacock feathers. Neither of these adornments, however, could break Tim's gaze away from yet another man's crotch.
A tiger had died to inadequately conceal this elf's genitals. The eyelids were sewn shut, but the mouth hung wide open. Tim couldn't identify the pink, scaly animal that had given its life to be this guy's dick sock. It hung out like the tongue of no tiger that ever lived.
"There you are!" said Alonzo, his mock tiger tongue swaying hypnotically from knee to knee as he advanced with his refreshments. "I was expecting you to come in the back door like you usually do."
Felix wagged a finger at him. "It's not as much fun when you're expecting it."
They smiled broadly at each other, then spoke simultaneously. "Too true!"
Dave backed up a step and leaned down to whisper to Tim. "Man, we need to get the fuck out of here before we get drugged, raped, and turned into fabulous home décor."
"I was just boasting to them about your rod," said Felix.
Alonzo rolled his eyes. "Oh stop!" Tim's heart froze when Alonzo turned to face them. "Do you want to see it?"
Tim, Dave, Julian, and Cooper silently shook their heads.
"I'd love to!" said Gilda. She stepped into the house before Tim could try to stop her.
Alonzo addressed the rest of them. "Don't be so bashful! Come on in and have a drink. I'm afraid all we've got to offer is coconut rum."
Tim looked up at Dave and whispered. "What if you're wrong about these guys? Coconut rum sounds really good right about now."
"I'm telling you, man!" Dave was barely keeping to a whisper. "There's nothing in those cups but semen and horse tranquilizers."
Cooper sniffed the air. "What's that smell?"
"Haven't you figured out by now," said Tim, "that you're always the answer to that question?"
"It smells like…" He sniffed again. "It smells like weed." He pushed his way past their hosts, sniffing like a bloodhound as he walked down the hall.
Felix, Alonzo, and Gilda followed Cooper toward the rear of the house. Tim could feel Dave's eyes on him, pleading with him not to follow, but Tim couldn't see how they had much of a choice now. He stepped inside.
"Sweet mother of fuck!" said Cooper when he turned the corner. "You guys have got to come check this shit out."
Tim hurried to see what could possibly get Cooper so excited. The room was sparsely furnished, with only a rough wooden chest on the left wall and some palm leaf mats in a semi-circular pattern on the floor. The main attraction, however, was the clay fireplace, in which sat a crude, stone crucible full of boiling liquid. Above the crucible was a dome made out of some tanned animal hide. And connected to the front of the dome was a ten foot long length of bamboo as wide around as Tim's arm. The other end of the shaft was capped with a coconut shell, and rested in front of the center mat. The semi-circular pattern of the mats suggested that the shaft could pivot from side to side.
Tim was so impressed that he was unable to form a coherent exclamation. "Magna Carta!"
"Gindo herb grows wild on this island," said Alonzo, placing one of the coconut cups in front of the nearest mat. "It's one of our few luxuries."
"Me first!" said Cooper, taking a step into the room.
"Stop right there!" said Felix, his voice uncharacteristically authoritative.
Everyone looked at Felix. Even Alonzo paused in his task of distributing coconut cups to gawk at his partner.
Felix's harsh expression melted into a warm smile. "We are not brutes in this house. Is it not the custom where you come from to offer a lady the first opportunity to partake?" He gestured down to Gilda.
Tim and Cooper hung their heads, mumbled apologies, and stepped to the side.
"That's okay, boys," said Gilda, looking very pleased with Felix's act of chivalry and making Tim feel like even more of a lowlife. "You have your fun. I don't smoke."
Felix looked quizzically down at her. "But just a few moments ago, when we were outside, you said you wanted to –"
"Oh shit!" said Dave. "When you said 'smoke your pole', you were talking about this?"
"But of course," said Felix, looking thoroughly confused now. "What else would I have been talking about?"
Dave grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Forget it! Let's smoke some pole!" He skirted past Cooper faster than he'd run from the T-rex.
Cooper, Julian, and Tim fell in line behind him, each taking a seat on one of the palm leaf mats.
Dave uncapped the end of the bamboo shaft, releasing a cloud of white smoke which ballooned around his head. The cloud shrunk as he took a long, deep inhalation.
"Careful!" said Felix. "Go easy on the first draw!"
Dave's eyes glazed over with either inner peace or death as he fell over backward, armor and head clunking on the polished wooden floor.
"Hand it over, Dopey," said Cooper. He took the bamboo tube away from Dave, who didn't even seem to notice, and put it in front of his nose. He sniffed hard a few times, then frowned. "Dave smoked the whole goddamn thing!"
Tim crawled over and grabbed the pipe from Cooper. "Give me that, idiot." He sat back down on his mat and re-capped the end. "You have to give it a chance to build up." He sipped his rum. Exquisite. The sip turned into a gulp. When his coconut was nearly half empty, he decided enough time had passed, uncapped the pipe and inhaled.
The vapor was smooth. Tim felt immediately light headed, and the soles of his feet tingled. This was some good shit.
Passing the pipe to Julian, Tim caught sight of Alonzo smiling down at them as he rubbed an unfinished wooden scepter with a cloth. He giggled and nearly lost his balance as he tried to nudge Julian's arm.
"Check it out. He's polishing his rod."
"Do you like it?" said Alonzo, holding up the rod for everyone to get a better view. "It's to be my first enchantment. Magic is a persnickety force. You can't just enchant any old stick. The magic won't take unless the rod is of Masterwork quality."
"I keep telling you guys," said Julian. "You need to get your minds out of the gutter." He uncapped the pipe and inhaled.
"Alonzo," said Felix. "Grab my sack. I wish to smear my nut butter on the half-orc."
Julian choked violently on the vapor.
Cooper sprang to his feet in a karate stance. "What the fuck, man?"
"Oh heavens!" said Felix. "Is there some kind of problem?"
"Just back away from the exit," said Cooper. "Come on, guys. It's time to go."
"Speak not such folly!" said Alonzo. "You are injured, and your dwarf friend is not even awake. You are unfit for travel."
"Oh, but I'm fit enough for your nut butter, am I? You two grab each other's sacks and squirt your nut butter all over each other, but we're getting the fuck out of here."
"You can smear me with your nut butter," said Gilda.
"My dear!" said Felix. "Are you injured?"
"Hey!" said Tim, trying to stand on wobbly legs. "You keep your nut butter away from – Wait a minute. What kind of question is that?"
Alonzo pulled a half coconut container out of a small leather pouch. Inside the coconut shell was a light brown cream. "The oil from the pukka pukka nut has medicinal properties that can help your friend's wounds."
"I'm sorry," said Cooper, cautiously sitting back down on his mat. "I was confused. Probably the Gindo herb."
Alonzo frowned. "But you've not smoked any yet."
"Quit hogging the pole, long ears." Cooper took the pipe from Julian, who was still red in the face from coughing.
"You guys are kind of remarkable," said Tim. The Gindo herb was clouding his mind, making him say nice things. "You built this house. You planted a garden. You know about medicine and magic and shit. Are you guys some kind of geniuses?"
"Pft," said Felix. "You're too kind. Nothing of the sort. We were but a couple of humble servants in Cardinia."
"That makes sense," said Julian, swaying like it was a major feat of Dexterity to remain sitting upright.
"How's that?" asked Tim.
"They came to this island as zero-level NPCs."
"I'm afraid I don't quite follow you," said Alonzo.
If Julian heard him, he made no acknowledgement of it. "If you're lucky enough to survive your first few encounters with dinosaurs, you're bound to level up pretty quickly, right? Their Skill Points for every gained level were allotted to skills that they needed to live here."
Tim lay on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. "Far out."
"I'm sorry," said Gilda. "None of that made a shred of sense to me."
Felix frowned. "Perhaps we've had enough Gindo weed for today."
Tim sat up. "No!" He scurried over to take the pipe from Cooper. Capping the pipe, he sat on Dave's belly and tried to think of something to keep them talking. "So how did you wind up here anyway?"
Felix sighed. "Our master was Boswell the Grand, a powerful wizard. We'd only served for two days when he banished us to this island."
"What did he banish you for?"
"The gods only know," said Alonzo.
"Maybe you said something that might have been misconstrued?" suggested Gilda.
"I don't see how," said Felix. "We are simple men. We speak not in riddles."
"Master Boswell seemed in fine spirits just beforehand," said Alonzo. "He had recently acquired us in a wager, along with Bindle the Bard and his famous miniature piano."
"Stop," said Tim, shaking his head. "Just stop."
"Does our story displease you?" asked Alonzo.
"No," said Tim. "I've just heard it before."
Felix and Alonzo exchanged confused glances.
Alonzo refilled Tim's coconut cup from a clay jar. "That seems highly unlikely."
"You said something about his tiny pianist, didn't you?"
Gilda choked on the rum she was gulping.
"It was all complimentary," said Felix.
"I wondered aloud," said Alonzo, "how hard such a gift must come."
Gilda sprayed rum all over Felix's bronze, oiled ass.
"Oh heavens!" said Felix. "Did you not like the rum?"
"I like it just fine," said Gilda. She grabbed Felix by the hips. "In fact. Hold still and I clean that up." She opened her mouth and lunged her face toward his ass.
"Yeeeee!" Felix squealed, tearing himself free from her grasp. "Not necessary, dear. We've got plenty. I'll just run out and get some more." He ran out of the room, then poked his head back in. "I may be a moment."
"I never thought I'd say this, Alonzo," said Cooper. "But your nut butter feels great."
"Oh stop!"
"Seriously dude. I feel great." Cooper lay on his back and closed his eyes. "I just want… to stretch out and…" As a tendril of drool made its way from his mouth to the floor, a long, low fart rumbled out of his ass like an outboard motor in neutral.
"Jesus Christ," said Julian, swiping the pipe out of Tim's hand.
"Hey man!" said Tim. "I haven't taken my turn yet."
Julian ignored him, uncapped the pipe, and surrounded his face with the only air in the room that could compete with Cooper's fart. Tim had apparently been talking too long, as the cloud around Julian's face was nearly as big as the one that had dropped Dave. Unsurprisingly, Julian went down like somebody punched the bottom of a Jenga stack.
"Ha!" said Tim, taking the pipe back from Julian's unconscious body. "Stupid fucker." He downed what was left in his coconut cup and hoped Felix would return soon with the next round.
"So!" said Gilda, speaking unabashedly directly to Alonzo's tiger face crotch. "Do you guys ever miss anything from life in the big city?"
Alonzo frowned as he listlessly polished his rod. "We used to get more homesick, back when we had to fight off dinosaurs every day." He spread his arms out, showcasing his surroundings. "But now that we've made all of this, we have everything that we need." He looked down at the floor. "Almost."
"Why didn't you ever look for the portal?"
"Portal?
"Boswell didn't tell you about the portal on the north beach?"
"Master Boswell didn't say anything but a quick and angry incantation. Next thing we knew…"
"Who's thirsty!" said Felix, prancing back into the room with a fresh clay pitcher. His mink fur appeared a little scruffier than Tim remembered it looking before. He stopped when he saw the three unconscious bodies on the floor. "Oh heavens, it seems the party is winding down."
"Nonsense!" said Tim, holding up his cup.
Felix winked at him. "Ladies first." He filled Gilda's cup with coconut rum.
Alonzo looked up from his rod. "The lady was just saying something very interesting with regard to this island."
"Is that right?" Felix started to fill Tim's cup.
"She says there's a magic portal back to civilization."
Felix froze. The rum stopped flowing. Tim nudged the bottom up with his finger to get it going again.
Alonzo looked scrutinizingly at Felix. "She says it's on the north beach."
"Impossible," said Felix. He turned to Gilda. "We know every inch of this island. There's nothing on the north beach but ..." He pursed his lips and looked at Alonzo. "Terrence's cave?"
"Who the hell is Terrence?" asked Tim. "You mean to tell me there's another one of you guys on this island?"
"Don't be silly," said Felix, pouring himself a cup of rum. "Terrence isn't one of us."
Tim's mind tried to sort its way through a maze of booze and weed. Felix and Alonzo, for all of their eccentricities, seemed like a pretty welcoming couple of guys. Why wasn't this Terrence guy here with them, unless…
"So is he like… a homophobe or something?"
"I beg your pardon?" said Terrence, a little more sternly than Tim was expecting.
"Terrence is the nickname we've given to a peculiar tyrannosaurus that lives on the north beach."
"He lives there?" asked Gilda.
"That's right," said Felix.
"What do you mean he lives there?" asked Tim. "Like he's got a hut and a margarita bar?"
"I know it sounds strange," said Alonzo. "But he's always there, day and night, in the same spot. He steadfastly refuses to move from the entrance to this cave. He won't chase a hare. Our weapons have proven useless against him. He just stands there, staring out at the sea."
Felix raised his eyebrows. "It's almost as if he's guarding something."
Tim gulped down the rum in his cup. "That's some fucked up shit." At least he thought it was some fucked up shit. He knew he couldn't trust his mind in the state it was in. He looked at Gilda. She was starting to look all right, bordering on 'good enough'. Abort! Abort! "We shall investigate in the morning." He uncapped the end of the pipe and inhaled like he was about to get plunged into the sea. The world was beautiful. Then fuzzy. Then gone. |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 7 | "Rise and shine!" an unwelcome voice penetrated through the warm, comfortable oblivion. "It's a beautiful new day. Time to get up and have some breakfast."
Consciousness returned slowly. Despite Tim's best efforts to shut them out, the day's realizations came to him in their standard procession.
He was still a halfling. Shit.
He was still stuck in this goddamn game. Shit.
He'd gotten high and passed out in the home of two – Tim sat bolt upright and opened his eyes wide.
He was fully clothed. Thank fuck.
Neither his jaw nor his asshole felt as though they'd been violated. Thank fuck.
Was he a terrible person for having worried about these things in the first place? Probably. Even still, he took a quick glance around to make sure his friends were all accounted for, and that Cooper was the only one covered in nut butter.
"What the hell happened last night?" asked Dave, rubbing his eyes. "I feel like I got punched in the face by a fist made out of rose petals."
Tim shook the last of the sleep out of his head. "You hit the Gindo weed too hard. We all did."
Cooper reached under his loincloth and scratched his balls. "Did I end up blowing anyone?"
"No."
"Sweet. What's for breakfast?"
"Oh heavens!" said Felix, his nose scrunched up and his eyes started to water as he made a beeline for the window on the other side of the room. He flung the shutters open, flooding the room with blinding morning light, but also with some welcome fresh air. "What's that smell?"
Cooper rolled up the mat he'd fallen asleep on, presumably to hide the evidence of him having shit on it during the night. "This mat could probably stand a wash."
"Ew!" said Felix. "Just get rid of it. I'll make a new one."
Cooper balled up the mat and chucked it at the open window. Catching the air, it opened up, hit the wall, and stuck there.
Felix gaped at the mat, his chin quivering.
"Shit," said Cooper. "Sorry about that."
Julian stifled a yawn and shook his head. "I think we've overstayed our welcome. Perhaps it's time we part ways with our gracious hosts."
Felix looked like he was torn between his desire to be the gracious host Julian had just diplomatically challenged him to continue being and his desire to throw every single one of them through the window.
He regained his composure. "At least have some breakfast before you go. Gilda and Alonzo have been up all morning preparing eggs and potatoes."
"Oh fuck!" said Cooper. All eyes in the room turned to him. "Where the hell did you get eggs?"
Felix looked at the mat stuck to the wall, then back at Cooper. He answered tentatively. "From the chicken coop?"
"Whew," said Cooper. "Good thinking." He sniffed the air, presumably picking up a scent other than his own, and followed it out the door.
"Eggs," said Dave as he waddled out after Cooper.
Tim and Julian looked at each other, then at the mat on the wall.
"Should we…" said Julian. "Do you have a sponge, or –"
"I'll take care of it," said Felix, the usual gaiety absent from his voice. "Please, just go."
"Well there you are!" said Gilda as Tim and Julian walked into the kitchen. "I thought you boys would never wake up."
The table wasn't big enough to accommodate quite so many guests, and there were only two chairs. There were, however, more than enough dishes, all of which appeared to have been crafted from the same tree trunk. Seven such dishes were crowded together on the small table, each containing a generous helping of scrambled eggs, specked with chopped onions, green peppers, and chunks of potato.
Alonzo was adorning each dish with a sprig of parsley when Felix grabbed one and dumped its contents into one of the previous night's unwashed coconut cups.
"Felix!" cried Alonzo. "Have you lost your senses?"
Felix grabbed a second dish and a second dirty coconut cup. In his haste, he spilled more egg on the floor than he got in the cup. "It's a beautiful day. I thought it might be nice to dine outdoors."
The peacock feathers of Alonzo's robe were trembling. "Stop that right now, Felix!"
Felix slammed the cup and dish on the table and glared at his partner. "May I speak to you alone? In the other room?"
Alonzo put on his best fake calm face and turned to the rest of them. "Pardon us for just one moment." He followed Felix out of the kitchen.
Julian frowned. "Maybe we should just cut our losses and –"
"Sweet father of the gods!" Alonzo cried from the next room. He began to sob. "We'll have to burn the whole house down and rebuild."
"Now now," said Felix. "Maybe it's not as bad as all that. Let's just leave the windows open for a couple of days and see how –"
Alonzo stopped crying. "We can tie them up and burn it down with them inside!"
A night's worth of Cooper's hotboxed anal emissions was enough to break the spirit of even the most gracious host.
"Still your tongue, Alonzo. You're a better man than that. Let's just send them on their way and hope the dinosaurs eat them."
Before anyone could react beyond exchanging uncomfortable glances, Felix and Alonzo returned to the kitchen.
Alonzo's face was streaked with tears, but he wore a tremendously fake smile. "Who wants to go on a picnic!"
Tim didn't know how to respond. Their hosts hadn't even bothered to whisper their intentions to passively murder them, but he'd already determined that they'd be leaving anyway.
It didn't matter. Alonzo wasn't waiting for a response. He shoved the two egg-filled coconut cups into Dave and Julian's hands and immediately started scooping egg from dishes to cups with his own hands.
"We need a favor," said Tim.
Alonzo stopped scooping and glared down at him. "You need a favor?"
"Come on, Tim," said Julian. "I think we're pushing the limits of –"
Tim kept his eyes locked with Alonzo's. "We want to meet Terrence."
Alonzo's glare softened, but his eyes stayed with Tim's. "You want to meet Terrence?"
"Who the fuck is Terrence?" asked Cooper.
Tim held Alonzo's gaze. "Put a cork in it, Cooper."
Cooper responded with a small, squealing fart.
"Make that two corks."
The fart didn't stop. It just grew louder and higher in pitch, like a slowly deflating balloon being pinched at the opening.
Tim continued to stare down Alonzo. "Escort us to Terrence, and we'll be out of your lives forever."
Alonzo's eyes watered. His porn-stache twitched. All the while, Cooper's fart continued to squeal out, meandering through the room like an invisible serpent.
Finally, Alonzo blinked and turned his head away. "Very well, halfling! We shall see you and your friends safely to the north beach. There you will find Terrence, though I know not what you hope to accomplish. Perhaps your friend's flatulence can move him as we could not."
Dave stared down into his cup of egg. "Do you guys have, like… um… a spoon or something?"
Alonzo turned to Dave with what now looked less like a fake grin and more like a genuine, feral teeth-baring.
"It's cool, man," said Dave. "I'll use my fingers."
Alonzo faced Tim again. "We leave at once!" |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 8 | As they traveled clockwise around the circumference of the island, Tim filled in the rest of the group with what little he knew of Terrence. The tyrannosaurus, as Alonzo had described it the night before, was a peculiar beast, and Tim hypothesized that such peculiarities may have a connection, or at least reveal clues, to the whereabouts of the portal.
While no one seemed particularly impressed with his hypothesis, none of them had any better ideas, and most of them were at least mildly curious to check out Terrence, and maybe taunt him with thrown coconuts or something.
Even Felix and Alonzo's mood lightened as the fresh sea air diluted the fart in their lungs. While the rest of the party cowered by the water's edge, eyes and weapons fixed on the jungle, Felix and Alonzo walked confidently, weapons undrawn, on the hot, dry sand. Only Ravenus, flying ahead to tear scraps off of some disease-ridden dead fish, seemed to be as carefree as those two.
Tim nudged Julian and whispered, "Go talk to them. See if you can get them to hate us a little less, just in case."
"Why aren't you guys scared?" asked Julian, braving his way to walk alongside Felix and Alonzo. "I mean, I see you're tough, and you've obviously survived this long… But come on, man. Dinosaurs."
Way to go, Julian. Compliment their bravery, and back it up with evidence that you're not just blowing smoke up their shiny bronze asses.
Felix spared a glance at Julian like he was doing him a favor. "The predators on this island are opportunists. There are far too many of us for them to risk attacking. But to more directly answer your question, we know fear the same as any man. Learning to mask that fear is an essential part of survival."
"Like a Bluff check?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm sorry. Go on."
"If a dinosaur senses that you're afraid, she'll know it's safe to attack you. If she doesn't smell the fear on you, her tiny brain is wise enough to wonder why."
"They smell fear?"
"Worry not, young elf," said Alonzo, as if Julian was an embarrassment to his race. "However strong your fears may be, their scents are surely overpowered by your half-orc friend."
"Hey asshole," said Cooper. "I can still hear you, you know."
Tim turned his crossbow from the jungle to Cooper's loincloth. "If you say another goddamn word, I'll shoot your dick off."
"And I can still smell you!" Alonzo turned around, fists balled and trembling. His mustache twitched. He sniffed the left shoulder of his peacock feather robe. "It's all over me!"
"Alonzo, please." Felix tried to put his hand on Alonzo's shoulder.
Alonzo shrugged him off and stomped ahead along the beach. "I'm sorry, Felix. I just can't wear it anymore!" The robe fell off of his back, a pile of blue feathers on the white sand, revealing a previously hidden accessory on his outfit. Where the sides of the tiger face wrapped around his back and met, a tiger tail ran along his crack, hanging nearly as far down as the tongue on the other side.
Cooper snorted out laughter and snot. Tim just gawked, mesmerized and unable to look away.
Alonzo twirled around, his tiger tongue and tail flying outward and upward. Tim was startled at having been caught staring, and accidentally squeezed the trigger of his crossbow.
Click.
Twang.
"YEEEAAAAAOOOOOWWW!"
"Huh?" Tim was overloaded with sensory input.
"Son of a bitch!" said Cooper, both hands over his crotch. "You shot my fucking dick off!"
"Shit, man! I'm –" Tim reconsidered, thinking he might be able to score some points. He spoke sternly at Cooper. "I warned you, didn't I?" He glanced up at Alonzo and thought he might have caught a flicker of a smile before his eyes were inevitably drawn down to the tiger crotch.
Tearing his gaze away, he turned to Dave, who appeared curiously unmoved by both Cooper's howl of pain and Alonzo's dangling accessories.
"Hey! Dave!"
Dave's eyes focused on Tim. "Yeah?"
"I just shot Cooper in the dick."
"Far out."
Not quite the response Tim was aiming for. What the hell was going on with Dave?
"Well do you think you could… Hold on. Did you pray for your spells this morning?"
Dave laughed. "I'm an atheist."
"Dude! Are you still fucking high?"
Dave put his hand on top of his head, moved it forward at the same height, then brought it down to Tim's head. "Higher than you, man."
Tim slapped Dave's hand off of his head. "No shit, dude. You're higher than the goddamn Chrysler building."
"What's a Chrysler building?" asked Gilda.
Tim looked up the beach at Felix and Alonzo. "I'm sorry guys. Do you have any more of that nut butter on you?"
"What?" said Cooper. "No, really. It's not that bad." He groaned as he reached under his loincloth to remove the bolt. "It's… just a…" He dropped to his knees, wincing and groaning at a pitch only dogs should have been able to hear. "… superficial… wound." He exhaled and victoriously lifted his blood-soaked hand, holding the bolt. "See?" He panted a few times. "Good as new."
"You waste our time with your childish antics," said Alonzo, apparently still bitter about his fart-infused robe. "My rod shan't polish itself."
Tim and Julian shared a brief glance, but inappropriate laughter, it seemed, was easier to avoid when you've just watched a man mutilate his own genitals.
"Just ahead of us," said Felix. "Under that cliff, is where you can find Terrence. Our obligation fulfilled, we wish you good day."
Tim looked ahead. The land rose gradually. In the distance, it appeared as if a chunk of the island had collapsed into the sea, leaving a rockier stretch of beach and a sheer cliff face. The way the beach curved around, however, obscured the part where Terrence must have been keeping his strange vigil. Not being able to see the dinosaur made him even more nervous.
"You're not even a little curious about what we might discover?"
Felix looked down his nose at him. "We have wasted too many hours trying to coax Terrence into turning his back so that we might penetrate his hole."
"Um…" said Cooper. "Are we all talking about the same thing?"
"We have tried everything there is to try regarding Terrence, short of letting him eat us. I have no doubt in my mind that your band of buffoons will find a way to kill yourselves without our further assistance."
Tim wasn't sure why he wanted these two to stay so badly, except that he was shit scared of facing another T-rex without them.
Julian either felt the same way Tim did, or was picking up on his panic. "Well wouldn't you want to at least see that?"
Felix looked at Alonzo, who nodded enthusiastically. "Very well."
Cooper rose shakily to his feet, leaving behind a brown and red stew on the formerly pristine white sand. "Let's get this over with. I'm feeling a little lightheaded."
"As you should," said Alonzo. "It appears you left the contents of your head on the beach."
Felix raised his eyebrows. "Alonzo!"
Alonzo grinned sheepishly, pleased with himself for what was evidently an uncharacteristic zinger.
Felix clawed at the air. "MeeYOW!"
"So…" said Tim. "Terrence?"
Felix rolled his eyes. "Come on."
As they moved further up the beach, it became clear that, if Terrence really existed and really stood in the same place all the time, they weren't going to see him until they were nearly right on top of him. Tim started to have second thoughts.
"Is no one else in the least bit concerned that there's allegedly a tyrannosaurus just on the other side of those rocks?"
Julian shrugged. "I was apprehensive about it when we were a little further back on the beach, but not so much now."
"And why is that?"
"Because there are only three ways this can play out," Julian explained. "Either Terrence doesn't exist, in which case he presents no danger."
Felix shook his head and laughed to himself.
Julian continued. "Or he exists just as these gentlemen described him, in which case he doesn't pose a threat as long as we don't get too close."
"Option C is what concerns me," said Tim.
Julian nodded. "He exists, but is not as stationary as was stated."
"That's the one."
"Yes," said Julian. "Well if that's the case, then we're just plain…"
"Fucked?" suggested Cooper.
"Thank you, Cooper," said Julian. "Precisely the word I was looking for. We passed the point at which we could still hope to have time to flee into the jungle a while back, so there's not much point in worrying about it now."
Tim was surprised to find himself actually a little comforted by that appeal to logic.
Felix stopped, turned around, and addressed the group. "Gentlemen, lady." He nodded politely to Gilda. "I present to you, Terrence." He looked to his left.
Cooper walked up to Felix and looked to the side. "Holy fucknuggets!"
Dave waddled ahead, barely aware of his own existence. He glanced up in Terrence's direction. "Sweet."
"I'm afraid," said Gilda, grasping hold of Alonzo's hand, to Tim's inexplicable annoyance.
Alonzo smiled down at her. "You needn't worry, my dear. Terrence shan't harm you if you keep your distance."
Tim stomped ahead of them and looked up, and then up some more. As advertised, a huge tyrannosaurus stood motionless in front of the cliff face. It was at least fifty percent bigger than the one that had chased them the day before.
"Hey!" shouted Cooper. "Shithead! Down here!"
Tim's heart pounded. He gave Cooper a look like he was going to shoot him in the junk again. "Knock it off!"
"Calm yourself, halfling," said Felix. "Even your friend's abject stupidity is no match for this great beast's stubborn unwillingness to move."
Tim peered between the dinosaur's legs at a fracture at the base of the cliff. There was a gap wide enough to walk through, though the crumbly nature of the terrain made that ill-advised. Squinting harder, trying to ignore the giant carnivorous lizard looming over him, he thought he could see a faint blue glow from deep within the gap.
"Is there a light coming from in there?"
Felix hunkered down next to Tim. "Where?"
"Right there, inside the cave," said Tim. "You can only just barely make it out."
Felix squinted. "I don't think so. Maybe. It's too difficult to tell from here."
"The portal's got to be in that cave!" said Tim. "Don't you see? That's our ticket out of this hellhole. And Terrence here is a test."
"A test?"
"Yeah. He was put here to guard the portal. If we solve the puzzle, he'll move."
"Puzzle?"
"Sure!" said Tim. "I'll bet you anything that old Boswell put him here with some kind of spell."
"Let me Detect Magic on him," said Julian. His eyes glowed white as he looked up at the dinosaur. "Yeah, he's magical all right."
"Let's just kill it," said Cooper.
Tim rolled his eyes and laughed. "I don't really think the puzzle is going to be that easy to solve."
"Fuck the puzzle. I've got a hole in my sack, and I'd like to get back home and get that sorted out. We know magical creatures can be killed. Julian's killed enough magical horses to fill hell's stables ten times over."
"Just let me think about it for a moment, and if we can't come up with –"
"Eat a dick, Terrence!" Cooper shouted, and a chunk of rock about the size of his head flew forward, striking the dinosaur on the right leg. It bounced off of its skin and landed on the ground next to it. Terrence didn't even seem to notice.
"Well that's odd," said Tim. He loaded his crossbow and fired a bolt right into Terrence's undefended belly. It bounced off and landed in front of him. "He must have a hell of a flat-footed Armor Class."
"What's an Armor Class?" Gilda asked Alonzo. Alonzo shrugged.
"Ravenus!" said Tim. "Julian, where's Ravenus?"
"I left him back at that bloated whale corpse we passed half an hour ago."
"Get him over here. He got rid of the last T-rex. Maybe he can get rid of this one."
"I don't know," said Julian. "This isn't a regular dinosaur. I don't want to subject Ravenus to any unnecessary risk before we know more about what this thing is."
"There's no risk," said Tim. "We're just experimenting. Have him do a couple of fly-by's and we'll see what happens."
Julian folded his arms. "I can't reach him right now. He's out of range."
"Bullshit," said Tim. "If Cooper starts beating the shit out of you, I bet he'll come flying back."
"I'm not going to beat the shit out of Julian," said Cooper. As an afterthought, he added, "Dave should get a pet bird."
Dave nodded slowly. "That'd be awesome."
"I'm not bullshitting you," said Julian. "If we're more than a mile away from each other, we lose our empathic link."
"Julian!" screeched Ravenus, flying in from over the sea.
Julian looked at his feet. "Shit."
"Look out, sir! There's a dinosaur right in front of you!"
Julian looked up and waved. "Thank you, Ravenus. We saw him."
"No worries, sir! I'll take care of him!" He flew wide around to come at Terrence from the side and slightly above. The trajectory he was in would take him buzzing past the back of the dinosaur's head.
"No, Ravenus," Julian called out. "It's too dangerous. Wait until we –"
"BWAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Ravenus screeched as he started his dive, apparently hoping to annoy the beast to death.
"Stop, Ravenus!" Julian yelled. "Pull up!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH—"
Terrence's head whipped around a full one hundred and eighty degrees to snatch Ravenus out of the air. In a fraction of a second, before the echoes of the bird's battle cry had faded, Terrence's head had sprung back into its proper, forward-facing position, and he stood silently again, like a giant reptilian Buddhist monk.
Tim was in some deep shit.
"He's gone," Julian finally said.
"Dude," said Tim. "I'm so sorry. I didn't think –"
"It doesn't make sense."
"I know you must be –"
"It makes perfect sense," said Dave.
"Jesus Christ, Dave," said Tim. "Not now, okay?"
"It's just like in the movie," Dave continued. "You know how the dinosaurs had the frog DNA, so they could switch gender and populate the island?"
Tim caught a glimpse of Felix and Alonzo looking questioningly down at Gilda, like maybe this was a dwarf thing. She shrugged. Dave kept talking.
"Well dinosaurs are the ancestors of modern birds, right? So it makes sense that they'd share some of the same DNA."
"Man, I don't know where you're going with this, but now is not the –"
"Some species of birds, like owls, can swivel their heads all the way around to their backs, so–"
"So who gives a fuck?" said Tim.
"Just let me finish my thought."
"No!" said Tim. "Look, I see where you're going with this, and I'll grant you it makes about as much sense as that frog DNA bullshit in the movie, but nobody gives a hot, steamy dino-shit right now about how Terrence was able to turn his head around. Our friend is in pain."
"That's the part that doesn't make sense," said Julian. "I feel fine."
Tim wasn't familiar with the recognized stages of grief that people were supposed to go through, but he didn't think 'indifference' was on the list. He wanted to proceed carefully, but also be straightforward.
"Your familiar just died, man. Maybe you're in shock or something, but when it hits you, it's gonna hit hard. And I think you'll lose some Experience Points. I just want you to know that –"
Julian looked down at Tim. "I don't think he's dead."
Denial. That was definitely one of the stages. "Dude, he just got eaten by a dinosaur. We all saw it."
"He could have been swallowed whole," suggested Cooper. "Maybe he's still being digested."
"Cooper!" snapped Tim. "Not helping!"
Julian shook his head. "It's not that either. If that was the case, I'd feel his pain. I'd feel him suffocating. But I don't feel anything."
"Maybe you're just a heartless son of a bitch," said Cooper.
Tim glared at Cooper. "Still not helping!"
"It feels more like when our empathic link gets cut," said Julian. "Like when he flies out of –" He dropped to his knees and grabbed Tim by the shoulders. "That's it!"
"What's it?" said Tim. "What just happened?"
Julian spun Tim around and yanked his head back, so that he was staring up at the dinosaur. "Terrence!"
Tim raised a hand and waved at Terrence. "Sup?"
"No, you fool!" said Julian, spinning Tim around to face him again. "Don't you see? Terrence isn't guarding the portal. Terrence is the portal!"
"I don't know, man," said Tim. "That sounds a little farfetched to me."
Julian turned to Cooper and Dave. "What do you guys think?"
"Uh…" said Cooper.
"Awesome!" said Dave.
"Who gives a shit what they think?" said Tim. "Cooper's an idiot and Dave's still high as fuck."
"I think it's a perfectly plausible theory," Alonzo called out.
"Well there you go," said Julian, looking smugly down at Tim.
"Do I have to remind you that he straight up said that he wanted to see us get eaten by dinosaurs?"
"Is there no one that you trust?"
"Enough to convince me to go leaping into a tyrannosaurus's mouth? No. No one comes to mind."
Julian looked past Tim and nodded toward the sea. "What about that guy?"
Tim turned around. The beach was empty. "Who the hell are you talk—" Shit! He used his Bluff skill! By the time he turned back around, Julian was sprinting, having already covered about a third of the distance between him and Terrence. Tim couldn't hope to catch Julian with his little legs, but Cooper might be able to.
"Cooper!" Tim cried. "Get him!"
Cooper was facing the wrong way, squinting toward the beach. "I can't even fucking see him. Where is he?"
"Not him! Julian!"
"Huh?" Cooper turned around. "Oh shit!" He displaced about ten pounds of sand as he took off after Julian. "Dude! Stop! Are you fucking crazy?"
For all his faults, Cooper could run like a motherfucker. It would be close, but Tim estimated that Cooper might reach Julian just in the nick of time to save him.
Julian looked back over his shoulder, and evidently came up with the same estimate. "Horse!" A second later, Julian was mounted on a beige stallion.
Cooper stopped running. "Come on, man. Don't kill yourself over a goddamn bird."
"Ravenus is alive," said Julian. "He's going to come looking for me. If I don't get there before he flies out of range, I may really lose him forever." He looked up at Terrence, aligned his horse, and whipped down the reins. "Yah!"
The horse bolted toward the dinosaur at full gallop while Tim stood helplessly and watched.
As any idiot could have predicted, as soon as Julian got close enough, the giant tyrannosaurus bent over, quick as a bolt of lightning, and ate both Julian and horse in a single bite.
Tim hurled his empty coconut shell at Terrence, who was standing upright once again. "Stupid, stubborn bastard. Died like he lived."
"How's that?" asked Cooper.
"Killing horses."
Cooper let out a small, listless snort of a laugh, and an equally unenthusiastic fart.
"I don't think he's dead," said Dave.
Tim balled up his tiny fists. "Well look who finally got his head out of the fucking clouds. Thank you so much for your opinion, Mr. Cheech and Chong."
"Those are actually two people, you know."
"That's exactly the sort of reasoning that just got Julian killed. What do you want to do? Keep chasing each other into Terrence's mouth like he's the old lady who swallowed the fly?"
"Ah ha!" said Dave. "And what finally did the old lady in?"
"I don't know," said Tim. "A horse?"
"That's right. And what did Terrence just swallow?"
"Terrence is a goddamn fifty foot tall tyrannosaurus! The old woman was a fucking… old woman! It stands to reason that she'd die if she tried to swallow a horse."
"The bird was stretching the limits of credibility."
"Was there a point to any of this?"
"Terrence is big, sure," said Dave. "But big enough to swallow a whole horse and an elf at the same time? No screaming? No blood? Come on."
Tim looked at the sand under Terrence. Not even a speck of red to be seen. "I want to believe he's alive. But I'm not willing to gamble my own life on it."
"I'll prove it to you. Give me your rope and crossbow."
Tim dug through his bag, pulled out his fifty foot coil of rope, and handed the rope and crossbow over to Dave. "What are you doing?"
"The Teleport rules state that all items in your possession go with you." Dave tied one end of the rope to Tim's crossbow and handed it back to him. "I'll hold the other end of this rope. The rope is clearly in my possession. The crossbow is in yours. If the rope disappears, you know I successfully teleported. If the crossbow gets yanked out of your hand, well…"
"Fuck that," said Tim, untying the rope from his crossbow.
"Where's the flaw in my plan?" asked Dave.
"No flaws," said Tim. "It's a great plan. But if you're wrong, I'm going to need my crossbow. Give me your mace."
"I wish you weren't gambling on me dying."
"I'm just hedging my bets."
"Fair enough." Dave handed over his mace.
Tim tied a simple knot around Dave's mace. "Dave, are you sure you want to do this? This is usually the sort of stupid idea that you argue with Julian about."
"Julian usually turns out to be right. I believe him."
"You're sure you're not just still high?"
"A little. So I'd like to get this done before I come down completely from the Gindo weed."
"Dave," said Cooper.
Dave looked up at Cooper. "Yeah."
"You got any coin you want to leave behind?"
Dave looked down at Tim again. "I'll give you fifteen minutes alone with him, and you'll be looking for any dinosaur's mouth to jump into."
"Oh sure," said Cooper. "When Tim says it, he's being practical. When I say it, I'm an asshole."
Dave inhaled and exhaled hard a few times. "Okay, I'm going to do this before I lose my nerve." He turned around and started running toward Terrence.
If time was a factor for Dave losing his nerve, he had plenty of it.
"This is excruciating," said Cooper.
"It's like ripping off a Band Aid with a glacier," said Tim.
"I feel like I should make a sandwich or something while we wait."
As the rope slowly uncoiled, Tim gripped the shaft of Dave's mace tighter. He held it out in front of him horizontally, one hand on each end, careful not to touch the knot in the middle. As Dave approached the danger zone, Tim had to force himself to watch. Though doubts crept into his mind, he also forced himself not to call out for Dave to turn back.
Just as Dave reached the end of the horse tracks, Terrence's great head swooped down to pick him up. And just like that, Tim was stuck in a fantasy world with still one less friend.
"Fuckin' A!" said Cooper.
"I know you and Dave weren't the best of friends, but it takes a special kind of piece of shit to celebrate –"
"Dude, the rope's gone!"
Tim had lost focus of the entire purpose of this exercise. He focused his teary eyes on the shaft of Dave's mace. Cooper was right. The rope was gone, and Tim hadn't felt so much as a tug.
He looked up at Cooper. "It worked!"
"Sweet! Who's next?"
"Rock Paper Scissors?"
"Sure."
Tim and Cooper each held out a fist.
"On three," said Tim. "One. Two. Three." Tim laid his hand flat, expecting Cooper to play Rock.
Cooper was nothing if not predictable, and kept his fist balled on the final count. "Shit."
"See you on the other side, Coop."
Cooper turned toward Terrence, hiked up the back of his loincloth, and grabbed both ass cheeks.
Tim averted his eyes. "Jesus, dude! What the hell are you doing?"
"Holding onto my butts."
Cooper ran toward his possible death with all of the grace and dignity that could be expected from him, ass cheeks firmly in hands and shouting obscenities. The whole island seemed awash with serenity when Terrence scooped him up.
Tim turned to Gilda, who was standing between the two scantily clad elves. "You coming?"
Gilda frowned and shook her head. "I'm staying here, with Felix and Alonzo."
"Are you sure?"
Gilda nodded.
"I'm just concerned they might not be able to… you know… satisfy you."
Alonzo took a threatening step toward him, his tiger tongue swung forward and back. "Speak plainly, halfling!" He looked pissed.
Shit. Where the hell is Julian's Diplomacy when you need it? "Look, man. I'm sorry. It's just that she's a young woman with certain… you know… needs, which I thought that maybe you two wouldn't be able to provide for, on account of being… you know…"
"Are you hearing what I'm hearing, Felix?" said Alonzo.
"His ingratitude knows no bounds."
"Hey!" said Tim. "I didn't mean to –"
"Unlace your breeches, halfling," challenged Alonzo. "I'm keen to see what provisions you have to offer such a woman as this."
As all of Tim's blood rushed to his face, he saw that Felix's was rushing in the other direction while Gilda caressed the inside of his thigh. The dead mink was beginning to come back to life.
"I'm sorry, Tim," said Gilda. "I didn't want you to have to find out like this, but you speak with no shame."
"Find out what?"
"Felix and Alonzo satisfied me just fine while the rest of you were sleeping last night."
"Seriously?"
Gilda nodded, her arms wrapped around Felix's leg. Felix's jaw hung open while the mink continued to rise.
"At the same time?"
Alonzo stepped back next to Gilda, who ran a hand up his leg. His tiger tongue started to inflate like a clown balloon.
"What? Like, rotisserie style?"
Gilda shot him a half-confused glare. "I think you should go now, Tim."
Tim nodded fervently. If he didn't get out of here before that mink's mouth was forced open, he'd have to claw his own eyes out. "Shit, this is awkward. I'm really sorry. I hope you all enjoy your lives together. Um… bye!"
He turned and ran for Terrence like he was the last lifeboat on a sinking ship. He didn't even see the giant maw snap him up. He just suddenly found himself floating in darkness.
Correction. He was falling in darkness. He flailed his little arms and legs helplessly around, grasping for something to hold onto.
"SHIIIIIIIIIIII—" he stopped falling.
"Easy there, big guy," said Cooper. "I've got –"
Clunk.
"Fuck!" Cooper dropped Tim onto the hard, stone floor. "What the fuck was – Oh. Dave, I found your mace."
"Oh, good. Thanks. I was afraid you might have left it –"
Smash.
Neigh.
"Son of a...!" said Dave, from a little further away. Can you please get rid of the goddamn horse?"
"Sorry!" said Julian. "He's spooked. He just fell from a height."
"Where are we?" asked Tim. Unlike most of his friends, he was unable to see in the dark.
"It looks like some kind of disused sewer reservoir," said Dave. "If we're back in Cardinia, that probably puts us pretty close to the site of the collapse."
Tim stood up, an inch of moist, old shit squishing between his toes. "That explains the smell. You know, that fucking Boswell is a real piece of work."
"How's that?" asked Julian.
"Think about it. You insult him in the slightest way, and he sends you off to some dinosaur infested island in the middle of nowhere. He sets up the exit portal to look like a giant T-rex, so you have to be near suicidal to take advantage of it. And then if you do, you get dumped into the sewer."
"What a fucking dick," said Cooper.
Tim shook some of the shit off of his sleeves. "Well the joke's on him. The Whore's Head Inn is in the Collapsed Sewer District. He pretty much dropped us off right at home."
"Yeah," said Julian. "I'm sure learning that would give him a real sting."
"Let's just get the hell out of here. I've got some memories I need to suppress with booze."
Dave's heavy boots squished on the shit-coated brickwork. "Follow me. There's a slightly inclining tunnel this way. Should lead to the surface."
Ten minutes later, Cooper punched his way through a hastily constructed wooden barricade, and the stink of the sewer gave way to the more familiar stink of urine, vomit, and booze. They were home.
Julian released Ravenus into the grey sky, for whatever bird-related business he had to take care of.
Unlike the sun-soaked tropical paradise they had just come from, it was dreary and drizzly in Cardinia, for which Tim was thankful. He recognized the part of the neighborhood they'd surfaced in, and knew of a good broken gutter between there and the Whore's Head Inn where he could get a nice hobo shower.
"I thought you were dead back there," Cooper confided to Julian as they splashed through the puddles forming on the mostly deserted streets of the Collapsed Sewer District. "And I thought about what you said yesterday on the beach."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," said Cooper. "So you're saying Ravenus doesn't have a dick?"
Julian sighed. "He has a cloaca."
"Like a vag, right?"
"Fine, Cooper. If that's how you want to think about it."
"That explains so much."
"Did you think about the other thing we talked about back on the beach? The important thing?"
"What?" Cooper's face scrunched up, like it was painful to try to think. "Oh, you mean that shit about MP3s?"
"When the hell did I even mention… Jesus, Cooper! I said EMPATHY! Did you even hear a single word I said?"
"Sorry, man!" said Cooper defensively. "I thought you were gonna start going on about some shitty band you were into, so I was tuning you out."
"Could you just not talk to me for, like, a week?" Julian stomped ahead at a faster pace.
"I said I was sorry," Cooper called after him. "I'm glad you're not dead."
"Give him some time," Tim said, taking Julian's place next to Cooper. "He's been through a lot today. We all have."
"I don't know what I would have done if he'd died for real." Cooper sniffed, but Tim couldn't tell if there was anything emotional about it, or if it was just part of the ever-present mucous that came with having a Charisma Score of 4.
Tim looked up at Cooper, searching for some betrayal of whatever he was feeling. "You okay, man?"
Cooper hung his head. "My dick hurts." |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | A Fistful of Gold Pieces | Julian squinted from beneath the brim of his sombrero and peered into the bartender's eyes. He bit his lower lip and nodded shrewdly. It was important to seem casually interested, but not too eager. A puff of cigar smoke would have rounded out the effect he was going for, but he was all out of smokes. "Please allow me a moment to discuss the matter with my companions."
The bartender was human, but as brawny as any orc. His long, greasy dark hair was pulled back into a low ponytail. Most of his chest and arms, exposed by a brown-and-yellow-stained wife beater, was covered in poorly rendered tattoos. He turned his head to spit on the floor, then faced Julian again. Something behind the bar shuffled excitedly as it lapped up the treat. Julian sometimes wished his elven ears weren't quite so keen.Ravenus, sensing his unease, dug his talons into Julian's shoulder.
Gripping the edge of his serape tightly, Julian resisted the urge to reach over the bar and wipe away beads of brown spittle still remaining on the man's beard.He concealed a shudder in the motion of a polite bow. "Excuse us."
Julian turned around to find Dave twirling the end of his beard around his finger, Tim impatiently toying with the hip flask in his pocket, and Cooper clawing at some grey gunk in his armpit. "Okay, guys. Huddle up."
When everyone leaned in, Cooper's breath hit Julian's nostrils like a garbage truck fart. Their vast differences in size meant that everyone had to bend or kneel down to Tim's height, which earned them odd looks from the bar's other patrons. Huddling wasn't going to be conducive to a productive conversation. "Second thought. Let's step outside." He turned back to the bartender. "We'll be right back"
The bartender spat on the floor again and continued looking down at it as a second creature contested the first for the prize. After a bit of hissing, scraping, and a thud which shook the stonepiss bottle on top of the bar, the victor commenced licking. The bartender grinned down at whatever it was.
Julian smiled politely before escorting his friends out the door.
"Fucking hell!" said Tim, shielding his eyes like the sun was trying to physically punch him in the face. It was easy to forget how nice a day it was outside, or even that nice days were a thing, when inside a place like the Rock Bottom pub. It had that old familiar bar musk, like centuries old wood steeped in blood, smoke, and ass.
The sight of Tim taking a swig from his flask was one that, no matter how often Julian saw it, he couldn't get used to. He looked like a stocky, alcoholic twelve-year-old.
"Don't look at me like that," said Tim. "It's bound to be afternoon by now."
"I guess I should thank you for not actually drinking that inside the establishment." He looked up at Cooper. "And thank you all for not talking while I was conducting business."
"What's the job?" asked Dave, already sounding suspicious.
"It sounds absolutely perfect for us," said Julian, trying to sound chipper. "He'll pay us fifty gold pieces to bring him this guy named…" He cleared his throat before mumbling, "Barlow the Butcher."
Tim choked on his stonepiss. "Are you out of your fucking mind? What about any of what you just said sounds perfect?"
"He wants the guy alive," said Julian. "It's good money, and we don't have to get our hands dirty."
"Barlow the goddamn Butcher?"
"I asked about that. It turns out he's an actual butcher. Just a regular guy.There's four of us –"
"Ahem," said Ravenus.
"Sorry, five of us, and only one of him. Between my Charisma, your Intelligence, Cooper's Strength, and… um…Dave…We can nab this guy."
Cooper scratched his head, like he was digging for something inside his giant half-orc skull. "If it's that easy, why would he pay us?"
"You see?" said Dave. "Even Cooper can see the problem here, and he's borderline retarded."
"Hey! Fuck you, Dave!"
"No offense."
Cooper poked out his big bottom lip and crossed his arms. "All right, then."
"Cooper's right," said Tim. "Dude looks like a prison rapist. Hard as fucking nails. Why would he need our help to chase down some butcher?"
Julian smiled and shook his head. "I can't believe you guys can't see what's going on here. I'm supposed to be the newbie…nooby? Am I saying that right?"
Dave narrowed his eyes at Julian. "What are you getting at?"
Julian cocked a thumb back at the bar. "That guy in there. He's a quest giver. The gold, the Experience Points, that's not coming out of his pocket. It's all just an arbitrary reward doled out by the game."
"Hmph," said Dave. "Game logic. It's like those old Nintendo RPGs where the guy at the weapon shop had the Sword of Ultimate Power that you needed to defeat the Demon Lord as part of his standard inventory, but the dude wouldn't sell it to you if you were short by one gold piece even though you were the only person standing in the way of a worldwide cataclysm."
"Exactly," Julian said, only peripherally aware of what Dave was talking about.
Tim laughed. "My favorites were the quests where some asshole would send you out to collect ten wolf teeth or some shit, and then you kill like six dozen wolves who haven't got ten fucking teeth between them, like they'd all been gumming you to death."
"That's right," said Julian, thinking he might have been better off spending less of his youth reading books and more of it playing video games. He was out of his element.
Cooper snorted. "Or when a big-ass frog the size of a fucking car jumps out onto the road, and assholes don't even slow down."
Julian pursed his lips. "Um… I guess that kinda works."
"But this isn't some 90s-era video game," said Tim. "Grab your big, goofy ears and you'll find that they're just as real as my tiny halfling dick."
"We could at least check it out," said Dave.
"Are you kidding me?" said Tim. "You were against this idea not two minutes ago. You're supposed to be wise."
"The game logic thing makes sense.We've been in enough situations in this world that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense in the real world."
Tim balled up his little fist. "Don't you see? We're in one right now!" He continued facing Dave, but pointed accusingly at Julian. "He's using his Diplomacy skill on you to undermine your Wisdom and make you think stupid things."
Julian would deny this if asked point blank, but thought it best to remain silent otherwise.
"I'm not saying we should go through with the whole thing," said Dave. "I'm just saying we could get the address and stake the place out. Make an informed decision whether or not to carry on from there."
Tim shook his head. "This is bullshit." He looked up at Cooper. "You've been awful quiet. What do you think?"
Cooper scratched his ass thoughtfully. "Are there dire frogs in the Monster Manual?"
Tim took a deep swig from his flask. "This is so fucking stupid."
Julian offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "I'll just pop back in and get the address then, shall I?" |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 10 | Two hours later they were standing at the edge of a district of Cardinia known as Shallow Grave.
While the Collapsed Sewer District was a dismal, lawless shithole, the actual sewer collapse, and resulting shift in demographics, were relatively recent. Organized crime hadn't yet had a chance to take much of a foothold in the area. Frank had referred to it as Chaotic Neutral, which he said made it a good place for the likes of them.
Shallow Grave, on the other hand, was what Frank had described as Lawful Evil. He'd told them it was the one part of town they'd do well to avoid, a point that Tim had brought up several times during the long walk there.
It was usually difficult to tell exactly the point where one district ended and another began, but when dusk set in unexpectedly early, the buildings were all a uniform shade of grim, the air took on an abandoned hospital scent, and there was a noticeably higher concentration of orcs mulling around (as well as a complete absence of Kingsguard), Julian suspected they had reached their destination.
Aside from the occasional rat or stray cat digging through rancid garbage, the only sounds to be heard were their own hollow footsteps against the long neglected street.
"I guess we're here," said Julian. If he were in a car, he'd have locked his doors.
"How the fuck did we get to Detroit?" asked Cooper.
"The streets aren't marked," Tim observed. He hadn't yet drunk enough to steady the quiver in his voice. "How are we supposed to find the address?"
Julian had dreaded this moment. "There isn't, um… I wasn't actually given an address. He just told me to go to Shallow Grave and ask around."
Everyone stopped. Julian felt the pressure of his friends' stares on top of the yellow-eyed stares of the locals. He hadn't felt this uncomfortable since his high-school girlfriend's father, who had apparently not been informed of his being Jewish, asked him over a family dinner when he'd been 'saved'. It was a short-lived relationship.
Dave put his hands on his hips. "That isn't something you thought you should share with the rest of us before coming here?"
"I was curious!" said Julian. "I've never seen Shallow Grave, and I thought it would be okay in the daytime."
Cooper looked up at the overcast sky. "I don't think this place has daytime."
"That's just great," said Tim. "A butcher with no butcher shop. I guess he freelances." He tilted his head back, opened his mouth wide, and poured the last few remaining drops of stonepiss onto his tongue.
Julian frowned down at Tim. "Have you considered the thought that you might have a drinking problem?"
Tim jiggled his empty flask upside down. "Well I've sure as shit got one now, don't I?" He scanned the row of buildings up the right side of the street. "I'm going to see if I can get a refill. That looks like a general store next to the… Well fuck me. How did we miss that?"
Julian had been doing his best to avoid making eye contact with the locals, and had therefore missed out on most of the storefronts as well. He followed Tim's gaze to a sign above an open doorway. The once-white paint was cracked on the mildewed and rain-warped wood, and there were no words, but the pictures painted on it made clear the purpose of the shop. The heads of a cow, a pig, a goat, several types of fowl, and a few animals that Julian couldn't make out were painted in rusty brown, likely with the blood of each animal represented.
Julian started walking, but Tim grabbed him by the serape.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going?"
"It's a butcher shop," said Julian. "I'm going to ask if they know a guy named Barlow."
"When you go into a butcher shop, you order meat. You don't order butchers. They're not going to wrap the fucker up in brown paper and hand him to you over the counter."
"I wasn't going to order him," said Julian. "I was just going in to gather information."
"You don't Gather Information," said Tim. "I Gather Information."
"You're the one who declared me the 'face of the party', remember? I've got the highest Charisma score, so I've always got to be the one to do all the talking. Ring any bells?"
Tim slipped his empty flask into his inner vest pocket. "But you don't have any ranks in the Gather Information skill."
"It's just asking a question," Julian argued. "Excuse me, sir. Do you know where I might find a Mr. Barlow the Butcher?"
"Perfect," said Tim. "Sounds like a great way to get us all murdered while tipping off Barlow the Butcher that someone's put a price on his head."
"So what are you going to do differently?"
Tim folded his arms and looked smugly up at Julian. "I'm going to be coy, cunning. I'll make use of innuendo, double entendres, mixed signals, and the like until I know whether or not it's safe to pry further and ask more direct questions. Anyone can ask a simple question. It takes skill points, however, to Gather Information."
Julian shrugged. "Fine."
"Give me a couple of silver pieces, would you?"
"What for?"
"I may have to grease a few palms. It's all a delicate balance of knowing who, when, and how much."
"Yeah, yeah," said Julian. He reached under his serape into his belt pouch and fished out three silver pieces, which he slapped into Tim's waiting palm. "Be careful in there."
Tim nodded, then scampered giddily across the street and into the general store.
Julian shook his head. "That sneaky little shit."
A minute later, Tim reappeared in the doorway of the general store sipping from his freshly topped up flask, then walked into the butcher shop next door. It was probably for the best that he got his drink. He didn't have as high a Charisma score as Julian's, and he tended to get mouthy when he was cranky.
Somewhere in the alley on the other side of the general store, a cat moaned like it was calling out for the sweet release of death. Julian felt Ravenus getting fidgety on his shoulder.
"Sir," said Ravenus. "As long as we're all just standing around, would –"
"Go do your thing," said Julian, not wanting to hear the gory details. Ravenus launched off his shoulder like someone had fired the starting pistol. As much as he cared for Ravenus, he sometimes wished he could feed him normal bird snacks, like grapes or crackers or whatever.
"Don't fly off too far," Julian called out as Ravenus disappeared into the alley.
Julian, Dave, and even Cooper winced as the cat let out its final, disease-ridden, mortal feline cry.
Julian shrugged. "Bird's gotta eat."
Dave shivered. "I wish Tim would hurry the hell up. I don't like this neighborhood."
"Too many orcs for your liking?" asked Julian.
"I know where you're going with this," said Dave. "Don't even start on one of your lectures. Every big city has areas that are best avoided. If that happens to correlate with a predominant ethnic demographic, then…" It was fun to watch Dave squirm. "This isn't even the same thing as…" He tugged on his beard, then looked Julian in the eye. "You should know this better than any of us."
"Oh? And how's that?"
"You're the one who got mugged at gunpoint in New Orleans last New Year's Eve."
"Not by fucking orcs!" Julian paused to reflect on what he'd just said. If there was an analogy to be made, it was quickly slipping away from him.
"Would you stupid assholes keep your voices down?" said Tim.
Dave jumped. "Oh, hey Tim. I didn't hear you approach."
"I'm sneaky. That's kinda my thing."
"How'd it go in there?" asked Julian. "Did you Gather any Information?"
"I'm not exactly sure what happened in there," Tim admitted. "I either ordered six pounds of pork chops, or I put out a hit on a prominent family of gnomes."
"How does that even –"
"Keep your panties on. I got an address."
Cooper looked skyward, like something caught his eye. "Where the fuck is your bird going?"
Julian looked up just in time to catch a black mass flying eastward disappear behind a building. "Damn it, Ravenus." He shook his head. "The one thing I asked him not to do."
"Don't sweat it," said Tim. "We're headed that way anyway." He took a swig from his flask, turned around, and started walking, leading the group deeper into Shallow Grave.
"That's the one," said Tim after they'd walked a few blocks and turned a corner.
Contrary to Dave, Julian grew more and more uneasy the farther they went specifically because of the lack of people staring at them, orc or otherwise. This part of town looked utterly abandoned. Storefronts were boarded up. No windows were lit. The only sounds came from dark alleys, the scurrying of creatures that Julian hoped were only rats.
Cooper frowned. "That don't look like no butcher shop."
"It doesn't even look finished," said Dave.
The building Tim had indicated was not hard to pick out. It was easily the tallest structure in this part of town, at least five stories high with a sixth possibly in the works. It was difficult to tell for sure, because the entire exterior of the building was obscured by scaffolding.
Julian tried to imagine what this place might have looked like in rosier times, presumably before it became known as Shallow Grave. Clean streets, open shops, bustling crowds, an impressive new building in the works. "I wonder what happened here."
"I think it's pretty obvious," said Dave. "It got overrun with –" In response to Julian's glare, he paused to consider how best to finish his sentence. "–crime."
In the past, the thick-beamed scaffolding must have been sturdy enough to hold teams of dwarven stonemasons, but closer inspection betrayed its age and neglect. The bamboo looked as porous as an old sponge, the rotted safety nets as fragile as fine lace. In its current state, Julian wouldn't trust it to support the weight of the termites which had no doubt eaten through most of the wooden platforms.
"There's a faint light coming from one of the third floor windows," whispered Tim. "I'll bet that's where Barlow's holed up."
Dave quietly cleared his throat. "I'd like to remind everyone that we don't actually have to go through with this. We can all turn around and walk away right now."
A caw and the cry of another dying cat rang out in the still air, causing all four of them to jump.
Julian laughed nervously. "Just Ravenus."
"How much cat can that fucking bird eat?" asked Cooper.
"He's got a high metabolism," said Julian. "Flying takes a lot out of you."
Tim scratched his head. "Not a whole cat's worth in the space of less than an hour, even if it is half starved. It sounds like he's just killing for sport now."
"He doesn't like his meat too fresh," said Julian, scrambling for some justification for his familiar's sudden bloodlust. "Stray cats are plentiful enough around here. Maybe he's just eating their eyes and moving on to the next one."
Tim gawked at Julian. "That doesn't sound…hmm, what's the word…completely fucking psychotic to you?"
Julian wanted to come to Ravenus's defense. He wanted to tell Tim to go screw himself. But what if Tim was right? Psychosis could explain why he hadn't felt any change in Ravenus's emotions. No sense of regret. Not even a rush of adrenaline during the kill. Could Ravenus have gone all Hannibal Lecter on him?
"I'm uh… I… I'm just gonna go see what he's up to," said Julian. He nodded up at the illuminated third floor window. "You guys decide what you want to do about that."
He jogged across the street, where the sound of cat murder had come from. He entered the narrow alley made narrower by garbage bins leaking pungent slime into the rivulets between uneven cobblestones.
Not wanting to draw too much unwanted attention, he whispered into the alley, "Ravenus?"
He was answered by the familiar sound of flapping wings, but Ravenus didn't come out to meet him. The sound was moving away. Julian ran into the alley, but he was too late. All he saw was the shredded, disemboweled remains of a dead cat.
Was this a side of Ravenus that Julian hadn't been privy to before? Did his familiar lead a double life as a serial cat murderer? Was he so ashamed that he couldn't bear the thought of Julian walking in on him in the act?
"It's okay, buddy," Julian said into the darkness. "We'll get through this together."
Julian stepped over and around debris as he made his way out of the dark alley and back toward the– Where the hell was everyone?
His heart beat a little faster as he scanned up and down the empty streets. A possible explanation occurred to him, and he quickly ducked back into the alley. They had to be hiding. That's the only thing that made sense. If they'd been in a fight, he would have heard. He hoped that whatever they were hiding from hadn't seen him.
A minute passed while Julian waited. He squinted and craned his neck, looking for anything unusual, but the streets were clear. Sadly, so were the sky and surrounding rooftops. He was alone, and starting to get more than a little scared.
Mustering up what little courage he could, he forced himself back into the street. If his friends were hiding, they'd surely be looking out for him and find some way to signal him. But the more he thought about it, the less likely his theory seemed. Tim could disappear in an empty room, but Dave and Cooper weren't exactly the stealthiest creatures in the world.
Julian cautiously crept further out into the street toward the exact spot where he had left his friends. About twenty feet from his destination, he suddenly lost his hearing. There's a fine line between the white noise of a quiet city street and complete deafness, and he had just crossed it.
"What the fuck?" he attempted to say, but no sound came out of his mouth.That did little to ease his nerves.
Still, he pressed on. There were dark spots on the old cobblestones that he was pretty sure hadn't been there before. He touched one spot, then looked at his finger. Red.Fresh blood. There had been a fight here. Why hadn't he heard it? Why couldn't he hear anything at all right now?
Frustrated, he kicked a stone toward the large, unfinished building. It bounced silently into the pile of debris and rubbish accumulated from the decaying scaffolding.
As suddenly and inexplicably as they had shut off, Julian's ears started working again. He heard voices coming from the third floor window.
"Good evening, gentlemen." The voice was nearly as high as Tim's, but colder. "That's a lovely tunic, Shitnose."
"Thank you, sir." The responding voice, presumably belonging to Shitnose, was gruffer than Cooper's, probably a full-blooded orc.
"Do they make them for men?"
A burst of deep, throaty laughter was cut short, as if the one laughing had been punched.
That's at least two orcs.
"Honestly, Shitnose," said the first voice. "You don't think that's a little fancy for work?"
"I, um…" said Shitnose. "I've got a thing afterwards."
The person with the high voice harrumphed. "So these are the conspirators you found? Why are there only three? Paulie said there's supposed to be a fourth one."
"These were the only ones we saw."
"Intriguing," said the first voice thoughtfully. "Did they put up much of a fight?"
One orc grunted out a laugh. "The short ones fell like little girls."
Tim! Dave!
"The half-orc took a few hits to bring down, but the human in him betrayed his weakness before long."
Cooper!
"Curiouser and curiouser," said the first voice.
"Shall I go and look for the fourth one?"
"No. I'll send Paulie. He's a far more efficient tracker than you. Did you bring back my stone?"
"I must have dropped it during the fight," said the orc.
"Shitnose! You incompetent fool!" snapped the first voice. "You know I can't sleep without it."
"Please accept my humble apology."
"Stop your blubbering. Just run down and fetch it once you've tied these three up."
"Very well, sir."
Julian exhaled. If they had to be tied up, they must still be alive.
"Grotch," said the one giving the orders. "Run down to Tommin's place and tell him I won't be able to make the meeting tonight, due to an unforeseen situation."
"He, um…" Even with Julian's keen ears, Grotch's voice was barely distinguishable from Shitnose's. "I don't think he'll be too happy about that."
"Have you lost your wits?" said the leader. "You don't think? You aren't supposed to think! I don't pay you to be a philosopher! You will walk out of that door and do what you're told right now, or you'll leave through the gods damned window!"
Large, booted footsteps sounded from around the side of the building.Grotch couldn't have gotten down there that fast.Shit! Paulie!
Suddenly realizing that he was standing out in the open, Julian darted toward the rubbish pile. If the theory which had just popped into his head was correct – and it seemed to confirm itself a few steps in when he lost his hearing again – he should be able to dive right into the trash heap without making a sound.
Julian hit the rubbish pile with a force that should have reverberated along the empty streets for miles, but was as silent as a church mouse's grave. He sat completely still, hidden in garbage and debris that smelled like a highway rest stop: moldy wood, wet stone, and old piss. A minute passed with no sign of anyone. While he was grateful to be within the sound cover of the enchanted stone, it would have been nice to be able to hear footsteps coming or going.
A black blur flew past right in front of him.
"Ravenus!" Julian cried before he could think better of it. Fortunately, the sphere of Silence kept him from giving away his position. If he were to be discovered, Ravenus– loyal (and apparently violent) as he was – wasn't going to be very much help against the orcs who had so easily incapacitated the rest of his friends.
While his ears were currently compromised, Julian's eyes and nose were functional enough to notice the stream of urine meandering its way toward him. The footsteps he heard must have come from someone who had just stepped outside to take a leak. Julian pulled his feet back to let the stream pass without touching him. That must have been a hell of a leak. That big bastard had to have been pissing from at least twenty feet away.
With the immediate threat gone, Julian started planning. He had to find the enchanted stone. It would be his best bet for sneaking around unheard, and he needed every advantage this game would afford him.
There were dozens of rocks in the area. Julian wished he had kicked the damned thing anywhere but into a pile of rubble. He briefly considered just shoving every rock he could find into his bag, but any advantage perpetual silence might give him could easily be outweighed by the potential disadvantages of lugging around a sackful of rocks.
Replaying the kick in his mind, Julian remembered the rock in question to be smooth, oblong, and a little bit larger than a golf ball. He ended up narrowing down the most likely candidates to two, which he deemed an acceptable burden.
The window was Julian's best bet. He needed a visual assessment of exactly how deep in shit they were. Tattered remains of cloth safety nets would provide him with some cover from an observer at street level, and Julian was confident that this rickety bamboo scaffolding wouldn't support the weight of any pursuing orcs. If they tried to come after him, they'd just bring the whole thing crashing down on themselves.
Julian's first step snapped a length of bamboo in half, confirming his suspicions of how sturdy this structure was. But he found that if he kept his weight carefully distributed, and kept his feet near the joints where the beams were tied together, he could climb with relative ease.
As he climbed, he spotted an orc he guessed was Grotch heading for Timmon's place. He hoped Timmon's place was very far away. One less orc to deal with.
Finally, he arrived at the third floor window, but stayed off to the side. Unable to hear anything, he had a hard time judging whether or not it was safe to peek inside. Looking down, he saw another orc standing on the street just below him. That put at least two of at least three total orcs out of the room, which was probably the best odds Julian was going to get.
Chancing a peek inside, Julian spotted his friends, tied to chairs on the far side of a large room. Dave's head was slumped forward. Cooper's was lulled back and to the side, with a long strand of drool hanging down from it. Only Tim appeared to be awake, and his eyes went wide when they connected with Julian's. He jerked his head to the right and put a finger over his lips.
Julian nodded. Tim must have slipped out of his ropes already, and was biding his time before making a move. The Silence stone would be better off in his hands, especially if he was going to attempt an escape with Dave and Cooper in tow.
Julian leaned back out of view. He had to figure out which one of his two rocks was the Silence stone. If he tossed in the wrong one, he'd just be drawing attention to himself and Tim. It was time to gamble.
He scanned the surrounding area and settled for the alley in which he had spotted Ravenus's latest kill. If he threw the normal rock, the orc below him should look over that way. If he threw the magic rock, he should be able to hear again, for what little that was worth. But then at least he'd know.
He dug the two rocks out of his bag and –Julian, you doofus! Detect Magic! Why hadn't he done that in the first place? He whispered the incantation, but no words came out. Oh, right. That's why.
Back to the original plan. Julian based his decision on which rock was prettier, and threw the other one. It hit the wall of the far building and ricocheted into the alley. Still deaf, he supposed his judgement had been sound.
Not only did the orc below him look in the direction of the alley, the gullible bastard actually started jogging that way. Score!
Julian peeked in the window again. Tim looked to his right again and held up two fingers. There were two people in the room, and they obviously weren't looking at Tim. Now was as good a time as any. He held up the stone and made a tossing motion. Tim shook his head violently.
Julian laughed to himself. The notion of chucking a rock at them must seem preposterous to Tim, who didn't know of the stone's magical properties. Julian lobbed the rock into the room. Tim winced as it struck Cooper in the face, waking him up.
"Nothing to report, sir" said a shrill voice. It sounded like it was coming from a hallway outside the room, and it didn't sound anything like an orc. "I couldn't find him."
Cooper was struggling in his ropes and trying to shout while Tim confusedly fingered himself in the ear. Julian shook his head and pointed at the rock.
Revelation shone on Tim's face. He nodded, picked up the rock, and gave Julian a thumbs up gesture.
"Never mind the fourth one," said the boss. He sounded like he was getting closer. Julian waved at Tim to find somewhere to hide. At least he hoped that was what he was communicating.
Julian craned his neck as far as he dared into the window. Hecouldn't see a doorway from where he was, but the boss's voice sounded like it was coming from just outside one now. "We'll beat what information we can out of the other thr— Where's the little one?"
The scaffolding creaked as Julian jerked back. He had to remind himself that he wasn't magically silent anymore. Tim's chair was empty, and he was nowhere to be seen.
"The craven little fool," sneered the boss. "Slipped out of his ropes and left his fr—"
That was a peculiar place to pause.
"—itnose! You idiot! What are you doing?"
"Boss!" said Shitnose. "What happened to you?"
"The sneaky little bastard got the jump on me. He's got my stone. Go after him!"
Julian felt vibrations as orc boots pounded out of the room.
"Hey asshole," said Cooper. "Let me out of these ropes."
"I don't think so, half-orc," said the boss. "You and your companions have some explaining to do.Now I can use magic to compel you to tell me what I want to know, but I'd rather just beat it out of you. Who are you working for? Jimmy the Weasel? One-Eyed Pete? Who's trying to knock me out of my turf?"
"Come on, man," said Cooper. "My balls itch, and I've got a storm brewing."
"A storm brewing?"
"I was trying to be polite," said Cooper. "What I meant was– Aw shit. Too late." A slow, steady fart rumbled out from within the room. As it grew louder, it was interrupted by glurps and squelches. A fart that was much, much more than a fart.
"Gods have mercy!" said the boss. "What the… Have you no… I can't even… Ugh." His voice was getting farther away, close to where Julian estimated the door to be. "I need to think. And breathe!"
As far as Julian could make out, the room should now be completely free of hostile forces, not counting Cooper's massive shart. He'd give it a few more seconds to let the boss get some distance, then—
"Aw, what's that smell?" said Dave. "Jesus Christ, Cooper!" He was awake now. That was good. "Would it kill you to find a bathroom?"
"Fuck you, Dave!" said Cooper. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm tied to a goddamn chair!"
"Use your Barbarian Rage to break through the ropes."
"Good idea," said Cooper. "I'm really angry!"
Julian looked in the window. Cooper's eyes turned red and his muscles started to bulge. The ropes binding him grew tense, but showed no signs of snapping. Instead, they dug deeper into his expanding body.
"Oh fuck!" said Cooper. "I'm cool! I'm cool! I'm cool!" He farted as his body deflated back to its normal size. "Damn. That hurt like a motherfucker."
Dave startedto panic, struggling against the ropes, his chair rocking forward and back. He made eye contact with Julian. "Ju—!" He said, just before his chair tipped forward. With his arms tied behind his back, he had nothing to brace himself when his face collided with the wooden floor. "Fuck."
Julian winced. That really looked painful.
Then Dave's panic kicked into overdrive. "Oh my God, no! Julian, help me!" Cooper had pissed himself as well, and the yellow-brown concoction of fluids beneath his chair was spreading slowly toward Dave's face. "No! No! NOOOOOOO!!!"
Julian's eyes stung as the wave of Cooper's stench reached the window. He couldn't even begin to imagine what Dave was going through so close to the source.
"Hang on, man!" Julian said, not knowing why he was even bothering to try to keep his voice down anymore. "I'm coming to –"
"CAAAAAWWWW!" cried an avian voice from just behind Julian.
"Ravenus!" said Julian, looking back just in time to see a black talon make a swipe at his face. He jerked his head back, lost his footing, and broke the bamboo shaft he had been standing on. Fearing the whole framework would collapse, he grasped for the only thing he could find that wasn't part of the scaffolding, a length of thick, sturdy rope which he hoped was attached to something at the top of the building.
The rope held his weight, but swung him away from the window.
"Ow!" said Cooper. "What the fuck, Ravenus? Julian! Call off your goddamn bird!"
Julian clung to the rope, devastated. Ravenus, his very own familiar, had just attacked him. That cat he'd killed in the alley near the butcher shop. It must have had rabies. That was the only possible explanation. He'd be okay. If clerics in this world could bring back the dead, they could surely cure a simple case of rabies.
"Goddammit!" said Cooper. His voice was more angry now than panicked. Dave was sobbing uncontrollably in the background.
"You okay, Coop?" Julian called out.
"Your stupid bird has lost his fucking mind!"
"It's not his fault," said Julian. "It's just the rabies."
"Rabies?" said Cooper. "What the fuck are you talk—"
"You there!" said the boss, poking his head out of the next window past the one Julian had been peering in. His face was small but plump, sporting a well-groomed and waxed black goatee. He looked down at the ground below Julian. "That's the fourth one! Get him!"
Julian felt a tug on his rope. He looked down. Just as he feared the rope reached all the way to the ground, and there was now an orc climbing up it. Grotch was still away on his mission, and this one wasn't wearing a fancy tunic, so that likely ruled out Shitnose. That only left…
"Paulie!" Julian cried.
The orc stopped climbing, looked at his boss, then back at Julian. "Is that supposed to be funny, elf?"
"Um… no."
"Good," said the orc. "'Cause it wasn't."
"Stop right where you are, Paulie," said Julian. "I don't want to have to hurt you."
"Ha!" said the orc, continuing to climb. "Now that was funny."
"Dammit, Paulie!" said Julian. He let go of the rope with one hand and pointed it down. "You've forced my hand. Magic Missile!" A golden beam of energy struck his pursuer in the chest.
"Ow!" said the orc. "You'll pay for that one, elf!" His ascent did not slow. He barely looked wounded.
Shit. Time to Bluff. "That was just a warning, Paulie. I've got more powerful spells than that!"
"Stop calling me that!" shouted the orc. Julian had apparently failed his Bluff check, as the orc continued to climb. "My name is Leo!"
Julian also started climbing, but it was clear that Leo would reach Julian before Julian could reach the top of the building. He tried to formulate a Plan C, but his mind kept wandering back to Leo. Leo didn't sound anything like Paulie. Leo. Leo the lion.The Lion and the Mouse. Julian had an idea.
The rope was thick, but it was old, and individual strands of it broke easily against Julian's incisors. It tasted like mildew and straw, but Julian gnawed it like it was made of chocolate and beef jerky.
When the first of three interwoven cords snapped, the rhythm of the orcs climbing changed. The rope was moving more violently now, knocking Julian's head against the wall.
"You stop that right now, elf!" said Leo, shaking the rope.
Julian's jaw was getting seriously fatigued, but he could see fear in the orc's yellow eyes. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times to stretch his jaw muscles, then went back to chewing the rope even more vigorously, ignoring the pain in his head.
The pounding subsided as the orc went back to climbing. He was only about fifteen feet below Julian when the second cord broke. Strands of the third cord were already starting to split from the strain of Leo's weight.
"Stop!" said the boss, from much closer than Julian had expected. The rope lost its tension, and Julian hung still with the last cord in his mouth, ready to bite down.
Julian looked down. Leo was ten feet below him, arms and legs spread wide as he tried to distribute his considerable weight on the decaying scaffolding.
"There's nowhere to run, elf," said the boss.
Julian looked to his left. The little gnome with the slick, black goatee was perched confidently on the scaffolding not ten feet away from where Julian dangled.
"We don't want to hurt you," Julian tried to say through the rope in his mouth.
"Well that's where we differ," said the gnome. "Because I very much want to hurt you."
Julian's eyes moved left, then right, searching for options. He came up wanting.
"Do you know who I am?" asked the gnome.
Julian had a pretty good idea, but was still clinging on to the hope that he was wrong. He shook his head.
"My name is Barlow," said the gnome. "Do you know what my friends call me?"
It was a longshot, but Julian took one more crack at being wrong. "Barry?" he said, his mouth full of rope.
Barlow reached under the lapel of his jacket and pulled out a shiny steel blade. It looked like either a gnome-sized meat cleaver or a large straight razor. Neither of those possibilities was less frightening than the other. "They call me Barlow the Butcher."
Julian's sense of hope had just reached a new depth when he saw a large mass of black feathers approaching from behind Barlow. After a brief, but steep incline, it reached an even newer depth when the bird landed gracefully on Barlow's shoulder.
The rope fell out of Julian's mouth. "Ravenus?"
"Over here, sir!" the familiar British voice rang out from across the street. "I've been looking everywhere for you, sir. Is everything okay?"
"Paulie," snapped Barlow. "Get rid of the bird."
"Right away, master. "Paulie's voice matched the raspy voice Julian had earlier heard inside.
As precarious a situation as he was still in, Julian couldn't help but feel some small relief that his familiar was likely neither rabid nor psychotic.
"Oh dear!" said Ravenus, as Paulie flew over to engage him in combat.
"Listen, Mr. um… the Butcher," said Julian. "Let's talk about this."
"Your words bore me, elf," said Barlow. "Paulie is hungry."
"Bullshit," said Julian. "He just ate a cat like twenty minutes ago."
"I'm sure I don't have to tell you that Paulie prefers his meat to sit out for a while."
"Okay, you have me there," admitted Julian, trying to prolong the conversation while his mind raced for a Plan D. Just keep talking. "Look, I'm really sorry about all –"
"Apologies don't cut it in Shallow Grave," said Barlow, getting to his feet and brandishing his weapon. "Here there are penalties for trying to move in on another man's territory."
Julian narrowed his eyes. He knew what had to be done. "I wasn't apologizing to you."
"Who then?"
Julian maintained eye contact with Barlow while winding the rope securely around his wrist. "Primrose."
Barlow shook his head. "This may be the saddest appeal for mercy I've ever witnessed," he said. "And I've witnessed a few."
"Appeal for mercy?"
"This Primrose, is she your daughter? Your wife?Your special lady friend?You long to hold her in your arms just one last time? I get it, elf. I've got a special lady friend myself. In fact, I'm getting married tomorrow."
"Congratulations."
"Thank you."
"But Primrose is neither my daughter, my wife, nor my special lady friend."
"So who is she then?"
"My Horse!"
"Oh shit!" cried Leo as a large, brown draft horse materialized on the scaffolding behind Barlow.
Barlow's eyes went wide as the scaffolding shuddered, creaked, and snapped all around him.
With a terrified whinny, Primrose crashed through the first platform. Barlow jumped at Julian, who caught him by his free hand. Julian felt the rope tug, then snap as Leo assisted the horse in tearing down the scaffolding.
"Let go of the blade, Barlow!" said Julian. The gnome wasn't too heavy, but both of their palms were slick with sweat, and Barlow's flailing threatened to pop Julian's arm out of its socket.
"Paulie!" cried Barlow, while failing to let go of his blade. "Help!"
"Leave the familiars out of this," said Julian. "The best he could hope to do is scratch and peck me until I let go, then we both die."
"Better the both of us than just me."
"I didn't come here to kill you!"
"What's that term you used before?" asked Barlow. "Bull's shit?"
"It's bullshit, and I'm not bullshitting you."
"Why should I trust you?"
"Because if I wanted to fucking kill you, I'd just let go of your hand right now!"
"You make a fair point, elf. Very well." Barlow let go of his knife.
A few seconds later, a horse screamed briefly, then fell silent.
"Primrose!" said Julian. He hadn't expected her to survive the fall. The layers of scaffolding must have cushioned the blow enough for her to survive… at least until she got stabbed in the back by a falling blade. "Dammit!"
"Sorry about that," said Barlow. "So…Now what?"
"Good question."
"Julian?" Cooper called out from the window below them.
"Cooper!" cried Julian. "What took you so long?"
"Sorry, man. Tim only just got back and released us."
"This is Barlow."
"Uh… How's it going?"
"I'm going to throw him to you."
Barlow's hand gripped Julian's tighter. "You're going to what?"
"Don't worry," said Julian. "I've got a Dexterity bonus." He started swinging Barlow to the right.
"I don't know what that means!"
"Just let go on three." He swung back toward the window. "One!"
"I don't want to let go on three!"
Right, then left. "Two! If you don't let go when I do, you won't make it!"
"Wait!" cried Barlow. "Please consider –"
Right, then left. "Three!" Julian let go, as did Barlow.
It wasn't a great throw, but Cooper managed to reach out and catch him by the leg. "Gotcha, shitbag."
"I'll climb up to the top and come back down the stairs," said Julian. "Subdue Barlow, but remember we need him alive."
"Right," said Cooper. The next sounds Julian heard were a punch and a thud.
As Julian climbed the rope to the top of the building, he heard flapping wings and looked down to see a big black bird fly in through the window. Not knowing which one it was, he didn't bother calling out.
"Ow!" said Cooper. "Fucking hell, Ravenus! What's wrong with you?Dave! Stop crying and come help me!"
As Julian climbed over the unfinished wall at the top of the building, he looked down just in time to see a second bird fly in.
"Jesus Christ!" shouted Cooper. "What the fuck is going on?This is some Alfred Hitchcock shit!"
Julian hurried down the stairs until he reached the third floor. He sprinted down a corridor toward where all the noise was coming from, wanting to get there in time to make sure Cooper didn't accidentally kill Ravenus.
The scene he walked into at the end of the hall was a horrific one. Barlow lay face down, unconscious on the floor. Cooper was waving his arms around, trying to fend off two big ravens. Dave was huddled up in a corner, openly weeping. His beard was covered in liquid brown, like he'd been drinking from a chocolate fondue fountain. Tim was on the other side of the room, rolling on the floor with his hip flask and laughing his little ass off.
And the smell. It was like onions and napalm. Julian's stomach turned. He felt lightheaded and had to lean against the doorframe to keep himself upright.
When he felt confident enough that he wasn't going to throw up, he shouted over the chaos. "Ravenus!To me!"
As soon as one of the birds disengaged, Cooper swatted the other one out of the air with his open palm.
Paulie sailed across the room, smacked into the wall, and fell on the floor. He stood up on his wobbly bird feet. "I will defend my master to my dying breath!" From the sound of his voice, that breath might not be too far off.
"Holy shit!" said Cooper. "A talking bird!"
Julian shot Cooper an annoyed glare, then addressed Paulie. "Nobody has to die today. We were hired to deliver your master, alive, to a certain interested party. What his interests are and what he intends to do with your master, I know not. But I think your best chance at survival lies in cooperating with us rather than trying to fight us."
"Very well," said Paulie. He sounded as though Cooper had knocked most of the fight out of him anyway. "I shall accompany my master."
Cooper shoved Barlow into his sack, and Paulie allowed Julian to help him snuggle in next to his master. It said something about the bond between a wizard and his familiar that Paulie raised no objection to being carried in Cooper's sack. But in the room's current state, the sack probably didn't smell any worse.
Tim stopped laughing to knock back a swig of stonepiss and wipe the tears from his eyes. "We should get moving before Shitnose wakes up."
"What did you do to him?" asked Julian.
"I hid over a doorframe. When he passed underneath, I jumped down and beat him unconscious with that Silence Stone you threw at me. Then I tied him up, hid him in a closet, and…"
"And what?"
Tim smiled to himself. "Nothing. It's stupid."
"Where's the stone?"
"I left it with him, so that he wouldn't be able to make any noise when he wakes up." |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 11 | Walking out of Shallow Grave was a lot more comfortable than walking in had been. The few locals out on the streets still followed the group with their eyes, but their stares didn't feel as hostile as before.
Everyone seemed to breathe a little easier once they had crossed the district line. Even Dave stopped crying when he found an unattended horse trough to dunk his face into.
Julian cradled Ravenus in his arms as they walked. "You really had me worried there for a while.You stay close by from now on, okay?"
"As I recall, sir, it was you who abandoned me."
"Sorry," said Julian. "I saw Paulie fly off, and I thought it was you."
Ravenus ruffled his feathers. "He doesn't look anything like me!"
Shit. "But it was dark, and he was far away, and he was moving so fast, and –"
"Big, black," said Dave. "You all kind of look the same to Julian."
Julian glared at Dave. "That's not… I didn't… You couldn't…" He exhaled. "You've still got shit in your beard." |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 12 | It was pretty late when they arrived back at the Rock Bottom Pub, but judging from the noise inside, it was a lot livelier than it had been in the early afternoon.
Tim opened the door, and what seemed like every thug, ruffian, and ne'er-do-well in Cardinia ceased their merrymaking to stare at them. You'd have to combine at least two of any randomly selected occupants to get a full set of eyes, limbs, or teeth.
Across a long gauntlet of men, dwarves, half-orcs, and full-blooded orcs, any of whom looked like they'd slit their own grandmothers' throats for a flagon of ale, stood the greasy-haired bartender, smiling at them with yellow teeth.He'd changed into a less-stained wife beater. Must be a special occasion.
An orc stood next to the bartender. He hadn't been smiling when they entered, but he grinned when he caught Julian staring at him.
Walking across the pub floor felt like walking to the gallows. Even Cooper, who usually couldn't recognize danger until it was actually stabbing him in the face, was moving with slow, deliberate steps.
"Welcome back, gentlemen," said the bartender as they stepped up to the bar. "I believe you've met my friend here." He gestured to the orc standing next to him.
"Have we?" asked Tim.
"I don't think so," said Dave.
Cooper merely shrugged and set his sack down on the floor.
"Long time, no see," said the orc.
Julian recognized the voice at once. "Grotch!" Something was very wrong here. They'd been set up.
"Grotch?" said Tim.
Julian sighed. "One of your captors?"
"Oh shit," said Cooper. "That is embarrassing."
"I'm really sorry, sir," said Dave. "It was dark, and you were moving so fast, and –"
"Shut up, Dave," said Julian. "We've got more pressing matters to attend to." He snapped his fingers below the bar to get Dave's attention and pointed down at Cooper's sack.
Dave's eyes widened as all the pieces started falling into place. "Oh…"
Julian smiled up nervously, facing the bartender, then Grotch, then the bartender again. "It was nice catching up, but I think it's best we get going now."
"But we just got here," said Cooper. "This little fucker is heavier than he looks."
"Leave him!" said Tim, who had also seemed to catch on to the gravity of their situation. "Let's just go."
Julian was ready to set aside all pretenses and just bolt out of the door as fast as he could, but when he turned around, he found he was blocked at all sides. All of the pub's patrons had congregated around them. They were fucked.
Cooper's sack started moving, as evidence of their felony kidnapping chose the worst possible time to wake up.
"What's going on?" asked Barlow. He and Pauliepoked their heads out of the sack, looking at least as scared as Julian felt. "Where am I? What is –"
"SURPRISE!" the congregation around them shouted in unison.
A nearby half-orc grabbed Barlow and stood him up atop the bar.Paulie perched on the bewildered gnome's shoulder.
"Welcome to your last night as a free man!" said the bartender.
Barlow's shock melted into a wide grin as he realized what was going on. He turned around.
"Timmon, you son of a whore! Did you set this up?"
"I set up the surprise party a few weeks ago. The kidnapping thing didn't occur to me until these four idiots walked in here this afternoon asking if I had any quests."
"Quests?" asked Barlow. "What kind of question is that? Who asks something like that at a pub?"
"Like I said," said Timmon. "Idiots.So I cooked up this whole kidnapping thing on the fly. I honestly didn't expect them to live."
"Hey!" said Dave. "Not cool, man."
"They nearly killed me!" said Barlow.
"Relax," said Timmon. "I told them to bring you back here alive. Just think of it as payback for when you threw two dire rats into my cot while I was sleeping."
Barlow slapped his knees and laughed. "You should have seen your face!"
Timmon looked down at his feet. "Those furry little bastards have really grown on me." He spit on the floor and the sounds of scraping and licking came from behind the bar. Tim scampered up Cooper's side like a squirrel climbing a tree.
Barlow's face turned serious. He looked at Tim, who was eye level with him on account of being on Cooper's shoulders with his arms wrapped around his face. "Where are Shitnose and Leo?"
The quiet din of the congregation suddenly became completely silent. Everyone looked around at each other and confusedly put their fingers in their ears. Soon after, they spread out in a semicircle roughly the size of the Silence Stone's area of effect, revealing two pissed-off looking orcs.
Leo was bruised, bleeding, and covered in dust. Shitnose had a lump on his head, and his nice silk tunic was wrinkled and smeared with blood.
Shitnose tossed the Silence Stone to Barlow, who slipped it into a small, black pouch. Sound returned to the room.
"What happened to your tunic?" asked Barlow.
Shitnose lowered his head. "I bought it to wear to your surprise party. Now it's ruined."
"Are those words written on it?"
Shitnose flared his nostrils at Tim. "That sadistic little prick cut me with a piece of broken glass!"
"I barely scratched him," Tim objected.
"What does it say?" asked Barlow.
Shitnose stretched the bottom of his tunic down so that the letters were legible.Barlow read the words aloud. |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | NOW I HAVE | [ A CROSSBOW ]
[ HO – HO – HO ]
"I don't understand," said Barlow.
"I wasn't even carrying a crossbow!" said Shitnose.
"Explain yourself, halfling," demanded Barlow. "Was that meant to be a taunt?"
Tim sighed. "It was meant to be a joke. I thought it would be funny."
"What's wrong with you people?"
Timmon wore a perplexed frown. "What is HO – HO – HO?"
"Forget it," said Tim. "Can we just get our money and get the hell out of this shithole?"
The pub fell silent. The only way Julian knew the Silence Stone hadn't been reactivated was that he could still hear the dire rats behind the bar slurping up Timmon's spit.The crowd of thugs, ruffians, and ne'er-do-wells seemed somehow larger and denser than it had just a moment ago.
Barlow the Butcher shook his head, then looked at Timmon. The expression on his face was easy enough to read. Do you believe the nerve of these assholes?
Timmon addressed Julian. "I would like to renegotiate the terms of our agreement."
Tim choked on the last few drops of stonepiss in his flask. "No way, José!A deal's a deal." He tapped his empty flask on Cooper's head. "And who do I have to blow to get a drink around here?"
Julian glared at Tim, hoping his expression was as easy to read as Barlow's had been. Shut. The. Fuck. UP!
Tim ceased his antics and pursed his lips tightly.
Julian turned back to Timmon. He swallowed hard. "I'm listening."
Timmon grinned. If you and your friends can make it through that door alive, I won't feed you to my rats."
"Ahem," said Paulie.
Timmon looked at the bird. "Oh, right. The rats aren't too choosy. You get first pick, Paulie."
Julian turned toward the door. Shitnose and Leo were the two main obstacles between them and it. "Horse!"
As soon as the black and white speckled steed appeared, Julian slapped it on the ass. "Let's go!"
The startled crowd scattered as the horse barreled over Shitnose and Leo. They'd both been through a rough day, and Julian felt a little bad about trampling them with a magical horse, but Tim had blown any chance that they might have had at a diplomatic resolution.
Julian, Dave, and Cooper followed the horse out as fast as they could while mugs, axes, and even chairs crashed against the walls on either side of the doorway.
Tim, who was still riding on Cooper's back, flashed his middle finger at the crowd. "Yippee ki yay, motherfu—" His face slammed into the top of the doorframe as Cooper passed through, but otherwise they all made it out unharmed.
"Get them!" shouted Barlow the Butcher, apparently wanting to re-renegotiate the terms of their and Timmon's agreement.
Julian slammed the door shut. "Horse!"
A magnificent copper-colored stallion appeared in front of the door. Julian stroked its cheek and let out a sympathetic sigh. "Whatever happens, stay right here. Okay?"
The door only opened an inch before being blocked by the horse. Angry screams poured out from inside the Rock Bottom Pub. The horse didn't budge. He understood.
"That won't hold them for long," said Dave. "We've got to get out of here."
Cooper hoisted Dave up onto the black and white horse, then tucked Tim's unconscious body under his arm like a football. Tim, knocked out cold as he was, did an impressive job of still holding on to his hip flask.
They had only run three blocks when they nearly bowled right over a pair of patrolling Kingsguard. One was dwarven, and the other half-elven, but both were solidly built warriors, bringing honor to His Majesty's crest on their uniforms.
"Halt!" demanded the half-elf wielding a shiny-tipped spear. "What mischief do you make at this time of night?"
Julian shook his head nervously, his eyes constantly darting back toward the direction they had come from. "No mischief, sir. Just out for a stroll is all. I was having trouble sleeping."
"You're an elf," said the Kingsguard. "Elves don't sleep."
Julian rolled his eyes and flicked himself in the temple. "Well there you go, then. Thanks, officers!" He spotted a raven flying in a small, concentrated circle above their position. He wanted so badly to run, but felt like their conversation hadn't yet ended.
The half-elf eyed Cooper warily. "What's wrong with this halfling?Where are you taking him?"
"Um…Church?"
"Is that shit in your beard?" the dwarvenKingsguard asked Dave.
"I, um…" Dave stammered.
"I'm sorry, officer," said Cooper. "That's my shit."
The dwarf's eyes went wide. He looked back at Dave.
"Come down off that horse this instant," demanded the half-elf. "I want to know exactly what you gentlemen are –"
"There they are!" shouted Barlow.
"What in the heavens?" said the half-elf. He and the dwarf stepped away from Dave's horse, which had been obscuring them from the mob's view.
"Oh shit!" said Barlow. "Go back! Go back!"
The dwarf looked up at the half-elf. "Is that…?"
They both said in unison, "Barlow the Butcher!"
The half-elf turned quickly to Cooper. "See that this halfling drunkard makes it home safely."
"And you," the dwarf said to Dave. "Whatever kind of deviant acts you choose to partake in with this half-orc are your business."
"I wasn't –"
"But wash your beard. You bring shame on our people."
With that, they gave chase to the dispersing crowd of thugs, ruffians, and ne'er-do-wells.Kingsguard training evidently did little to improve the Movement Speed of a dwarf. Julian, Dave, and Cooper watched as the stout little soldier waddled off after his partner. |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | The Minotard | It had been a rough day, and Dave felt he could safely cross Armed Escort off his list of potential careers. Nevertheless, he was in fine spirits. The rain, cool and refreshing, had rinsed most of the goblin gore from his beard and armor. Now that he and his friends had returned to the relative safety behind the city walls, he used up his remaining zero-level Heal spells to clear up a few minor scratches and abrasions left over from the fight.
"What's that sound?" asked Julian.
"Shit, I'm sorry," said Cooper. "That chili from this morning is still doing a number on me. I thought the rain would drown out the noise, so I've just been letting them rip."
"I was talking about the music."
"Oh."
Dave was determined not to let Cooper's half-orcish gastrointestinal issues dominate the conversation. "I don't hear any music."
"It sounds like a violin," said Julian. "It's soft and sweet, and kind of sad." Julian's enormous elf ears could hear a mouse fart from across a meadow in a thunderstorm. "Let's go check it out."
"I've got a better idea," said Tim. "How about let's not?"
"A little culture wouldn't kill you guys. Cooper? Dave?" Julian said Dave's name like it was a challenge or a threat. He knew that none of them gave a shit about listening to some violinist. But not going along would give Julian more leverage to act all smug and superior.
Knowing that he, himself was being played like a violin, Dave sighed. "Let's go."
They had nearly reached the quad in front of the Great Library of Cardinia when Dave started to hear a melody through the rain.
By day, the public area between the Great Library and the Cardinian Multi-faith Grand Temple and Medical Center was a place of bustling commerce, but the rain and late hour kept all but a few wandering souls off the streets. Those who stood around to enjoy the music did so from at least a fifty foot radius of the musician.
The violinist stood tall and alone, pulling the bow back and forth against his instrument. A black leather hat sat upside-down at his hooved feet, presumably to collect coins which no one seemed in any great hurry to give. A matching leather cloak kept most of his body, as well as his violin, protected from the rain, but his massive, horned head was exposed. From the tone of the melody he played, Dave guessed the rain on his face might be mingling with tears.
"The poor guy," said Julian. "Look at everybody standing around enjoying his music, but not giving him any money."
"Look at the size of him," said Cooper. "You can't blame people for not wanting to get too close."
"Seriously," said Dave. "He'd probably just spend the money on booze anyway."
Julian's eyes went wide. His mouth dropped open. Oh shit. Dave had just given him an early Christmas present.
"Hold up," said Tim. "Weren't we going to spend the money on booze?"
Julian's attention was fixed solely on Dave. "It's people like you who exacerbate the problem, making up these fantasies so you don't have to feel guilty about being a selfish asshole while your fellow man has to beg on the street for enough loose change to pay for his next meal. I suppose you think he's driving around in a Porsche in his down time."
"He's a fucking minotaur," said Dave. "Of course I don't think he drives a Porsche."
Julian fumbled around a rebuttal. "Or, like… you know…A fancy… carriage or…something. You get my point."
"Stop masturbating the problem, Dave."
"Shut up, Cooper!" said both Julian and Dave.
Dave held out his hand, palm up, to Julian. "You know what? Give me a gold piece. I'll go put it in the hat myself just to shut you up."
Julian pulled a shiny gold coin out of their collective coin pouch and slapped it down on Dave's palm. "Go for it."
Dave looked at the minotaur, then back at his friends. "You guys come with me?"
"Fuck no," said Cooper.
"Anything to get this shit over with," said Tim.
Julian rolled his eyes. "Sure."
Dave led the way in spite of his short dwarven legs. It seemed none of his friends were in any particular hurry to approach a minotaur.
The beast had looked big from a distance, but he wasn't standing near anything that would give Dave a frame of reference. As they crept closer, it only seemed to get bigger. It was built like a Voltron made up of vikings. Its curved horns were as thick around as Dave's arms. The music stopped as one gigantic bovine eye opened and focused squarely on Dave.
"Is something amiss, sir?" asked Ravenus, poking his head out from beneath Julian's serape. "I couldn't help but notice a certain unease in – OH SHIT!"
Dave felt a little satisfaction at knowing Julian was just as afraid as he was. He held up the coin. "Th-th-thi-this is for you, sir." He tossed the coin into a hat big enough for Tim to bathe in.
The minotaur looked at the coin, then back at Dave. Its nostrils flared and its eyes were alive with wild, murderous rage.
"Thank you," said the minotaur, his voice like silk wrapped around gravel. "That's very generous of you."
Dave guessed that maybe he had confused wild, murderous rage with simple gratitude. He hadn't spent much time studying minotaur facial expressions. He relaxed a little. "Don't mention it. You're a talented artist. The way you play that…" Now that he got a closer look, it was not like any violin Dave had ever seen. It functioned the same as one, but it was made of metal, the body was curved in such a way that it looked like it would rest well on a log, and the neck was made up of two long spikes. They held the strings in place, but looked more stabby than musical. "…instrument is exquisite."
"You are too kind, dwarf."
Julian tossed another gold coin into the hat.
"Guys," said Tim. "Let's not overdo it, huh?"
"Such a melancholy tune," said Julian. "Does it have a name?"
"It's called Lenore," said the minotaur. "I wrote it for my long lost love."
Tim clapped his hands together. "You know what cheers me up? Booze. You coming, Mr…."
"Call me Milo. Thank you, tiny halfling. It's been far too long since I've felt the warmth of drink and companionship." He frowned. "But I really shouldn't. I have a –"
"Nonsense," said Tim. "Come on. Grab your shit and let's get our drink on."
"Very well, halfling. Follow me. I know a place."
"I'll bet you do," Dave muttered so that only Julian could hear.
Milo glared down at Dave. "What was that, dwarf?"
Fuck!
"I… uh…" He had to spit out something. "I beg-a-boo!"
Milo furrowed his giant brow. "I am unfamiliar with that expression."
Julian folded his arms and grinned. "Yeah, Dave. I don't recall ever hearing that expression either. Tell us. What does I beg-a-boo mean?"
Dave was starting to sweat. "It means Let's go! It's like Yoo-hoo! and Toodle-doo! You know?"
"Dude," said Cooper. "Are you having a fucking stroke right now?"
Thirty minutes later they were standing outside the Piss Bucket Tavern.
"Hey," said Cooper. "I remember this place. We've been kicked out of here before."
Julian frowned. "Maybe we should find a different place."
"There is no other place," said Milo. "This is the only tavern that will serve me, on account of my –"
"Fucking racists," said Tim.
Dave thought back to their first night in Cardinia, and how they wound up at this very tavern because everywhere else they'd tried before that had turned them away. They'd refused to serve Cooper because he was a half-orc.
"I'm sorry," said Dave. "It's just that we've been specifically warned by the owner of this establishment to never set foot in there again."
Milo snorted. "Morty won't mind, so long as you're here with me." Before any further objections could be raised, he opened the door and stepped inside.
Julian tapped the bulge on his serape.
Ravenus peeked his head out. "Yes, sir?"
"We might be in here for a while," said Julian. "Why don't you go find a dead rat to eat?"
"I'm still rather full from all of those goblin eyes."
"Well then fly around and get some exercise."
Ravenus flew off, and Julian walked into the tavern unburdened by his fat, black familiar. Dave followed him in.
All conversation stopped when they stepped out of the small antechamber and into the tavern proper. That was no huge surprise; they were unwelcome guests here. But they'd been kicked out a long time ago, and Dave didn't expect them to be instantly recognized by every single customer in the place.
The Piss Bucket Tavern, contrary to what the name might suggest, was not the Mos Eisley of Cardinia. It was a clean, well-lit and well-maintained establishment in which patrons were expected to keep to certain standards of conduct. Violators of those standards were dealt with quickly and severely, as Dave and his friends had personally experienced. With the sudden hush of conversation, Dave expected they might be about to experience it again.
Milo stepped ahead of Dave and his friends, his hooves clopping on the wooden floor, and the collective gaze of the tavern's patrons moved with him. Dave, unaware that he had momentarily stopped breathing, exhaled.
The bartender placed a mug and washcloth down on the bar and wiped his hands on his apron. "Milo."
"Morty."
"I didn't expect to see you back so soon."
"My new friends invited me out for a drink."
Morty narrowed his eyes at Dave. "Did they?"
What the hell did minotaurs have against him? Why was he being singled out? Cooper was the one who'd wiped shit on the stool. Tim was the one who'd puked everywhere. Julian was the one who'd broken the No Magic rule. Dave was the only one of them who hadn't fucked up. And then it occurred to him, the unspoken message behind those mad cow eyes. Dave was going to be held personally responsible for any shenanigans his idiot friends got up to.
Julian should have stepped up to use his Diplomacy skill right about then, but the bartender was focused on Dave, so Dave did the talking. "I see you remember us, sir. I promise we're not here to cause trouble."
Morty's expression lightened to only mildly terrifying. He grinned with a mouthful of teeth that looked like they'd evolved to eat souls. "Relax, gentlemen. Come, Milo. Why don't you show your friends to your private room?"
Milo nodded solemnly, and the tavern grew noisy again as conversations picked up where they'd left off. Once again, Dave breathed a sigh of relief.
Making sure he was far enough back from Milo, Dave muttered to Julian, "The poor homeless minotaur has his own private room in a bar."
The tips of Julian's ears were red. For once, the bleeding heart elf was at a loss for words.
Milo led the group to the rear of the tavern where he slid open a seemingly inconspicuous section of wall, revealing a wooden staircase which led down into a basement. The huge minotaur trudged down the stairs, and the rest of them filed in behind him.
"Not a bad setup, my friend," said Tim, who was first in line behind Milo. "Smells like shit, but otherwise pretty sweet digs."
Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Dave had to guess that Tim was either blind, lying, or simply had very low standards for what he considered an acceptable place to get drunk. The cramped little dungeon of a room looked like the sort of place you'd interrogate suspected terrorists in, furnished only with rough wooden crates, the largest of which would serve as a table. A small, permanently enchanted Light stone hung on a thin chain from the ceiling, providing just enough light to remind a person of the poor life choices which led them to this time and place. The ancient brickwork was crumbling, leaving little piles of red dust and grit along the base of the walls. The wall opposite the stairwell had a giant hole in it, about the size of a doorway, but looked to have been punched through rather than crafted. Who knew where that led?
Milo knew. "Pardon me," he said, unbuttoning the top of his leather trench coat. "I must answer nature's call." He ducked under the hole in the far wall. Shortly after came a sound like water being poured from a height and the pungent stench of ammonia.
Dave sat on a crate, his head spinning with the smell of minotaur piss. He sharpened up when he heard another set of hooves stomping down the stairs.
Morty appeared in the entrance, his each of his hands gripping the handles of two massive tin pitchers. They were dripping on the outside, as if whatever was in them had been scooped out of a larger reservoir rather than poured in.
"Two gold. Paid up front."
"Of course, sir," said Julian, hurrying to produce the coins.
Morty grunted his satisfaction and set the pitchers down on the large crate, sloshing some of the brown liquid over the sides. Dave watched in disgust as a cockroach leg slid down the side of one. Hair, bug parts, and other miscellaneous unidentifiable bits were trapped in a greenish-brown foam floating on the surface of all four pitchers.
"What the fuck is this shit?" asked Tim. "Can't we get a beer?"
Morty held out his hand to Julian. "Milo prefers drinking from the well."
Julian's hand trembled as he hesitated to hand over the money. "I-I'm sorry," he said. "It's just that two gold pieces seems a little steep for…" He looked down at the pitchers. "…that."
"Well sludge only costs a silver piece per pitcher. You can think of the rest as a security deposit."
Julian swallowed. "That sounds fair." He dropped the coins into Morty's hand.
Morty put the coins in his apron pocket, from which he then produced four rusted tin cups and placed them next to the pitchers. Stepping into the stairwell, he faced them again, reached up over his head and pulled down a heavy iron portcullis. When it was all the way down, there was a spring and a clanking sound, and Dave knew he was trapped.
"Enjoy your drinks," said Morty. "If you behave yourselves, I may let you out later. Cause any trouble, and you get flushed."
"Hang on, man," said Dave. "What's this all about? You serve us well sludge and lock us in a dungeon? So we screwed up once. That doesn't mean you have to treat us like criminals. I told you we weren't here to cause trouble."
Morty snorted and furrowed his brow at Dave. "It's not you I'm worried about." He turned around and stomped up the stairs.
Everyone looked angrily at Cooper.
"The fuck did I do?"
"You spread your stool on his stool," said Tim.
"Well I didn't barf all over his floor and break his glasses like some little asshole I could mention."
The sound of running liquid stopped.
"Jesus," said Julian. "Did Milo only just finish taking a piss?"
"Big fucker must have been holding it in for a week," said Cooper.
"Some of us know how not to piss ourselves every five minutes," said Dave. He immediately regretted it. That was too low. Cooper's incontinence was a symptom of his low Charisma score. Dave shouldn't have said that. "I'm sorr—"
"Holy shit!" Cooper's attention was elsewhere. Specifically, focused on Milo. More specifically, on Milo's enormous dick.
Milo had returned from his piss, but hadn't bothered to re-button his coat. Whatever this minotaur's problems may be, physical endowment was not one of them. He looked like a wooly mammoth doing a handstand.
"Ah," said Milo, licking his lips and staring down at the pitchers. "Sweet sustenance!" He picked up one pitcher and greedily licked the outside of it, his purple tongue flapping around like a snake having a seizure. "Who's thirsty?"
"Uh...," said Tim.
Milo poured the well swill clumsily into four of the tin cups, not bothering to tip it back up between pours. He ignored the fifth cup, choosing instead to just use the pitcher as his own.
"Forgive me for not having asked your names yet," he said, raising the pitcher to his mouth. "I can be a bit bullheaded at times."
From the wide-eyed, helpless expressions on Tim and Julian's faces, Dave knew that they were suffering through the same conundrum as he was. Was that a joke? Should he laugh? Would laughing get him murdered? Would not laughing get him murdered?
"Bullheaded?" Milo repeated, raising his eyebrows. He was clearly awaiting some kind of response.
"Heh... heh..." Julian started. A tentative start to a laugh that he still might be able to steer into a cough if he had to. Well played, Julian.
Milo grinned. "Bullheaded. Huh?"
Julian nodded as his laugh/cough became louder and more committed to the former, a sign for the rest of them to follow suit.
"H-hee hee h-hee," said Tim, barely containing the nervous tremor in his voice.
"Ha ha har har," said Dave. It was as good a fake laugh as he could muster up.
Cooper frowned. "I don't get it."
Julian nodded for Dave and Tim to continue laughing while he himself stopped. "He's a minotaur," he explained to Cooper. "He's bull headed. He's got the head of a–"
"Yeah, I get that," said Cooper. "But what does forgetting to ask our names have to do with being – Ow!"
Julian's jaw was clenched as he glared at Cooper. Dave couldn't see their feet behind the large crate, but he was pretty sure Julian had just stomped on Cooper's.
"What the fuck was – Ow! How how haw haw ha haha." Cooper appeared to have finally caught on.
"You get it now?," asked Julian. "Bull headed?"
"Yeah. It's fucking hilarious."
Julian rejoined Tim and Dave in their terrible imitations of laughter, but soon Milo joined in with his own genuine laughter, drowning the rest of them out.
Eventually, Milo calmed down and took a swig from his pitcher. He wiped a tear from his eye. "Oh, that was too much!"
"I'll say," said Tim. "Jesus Christ I need a fucking drink." He grabbed one of the cups and necked back the contents, filth and all.
"It's only fitting," said Milo, "for a pint-sized lad like yourself." He didn't even wait for anyone else before he started his own roar of hearty belly laughs.
"What the fuck?" said Cooper. "Was that even a joke?"
Dave thought he might prefer to get punched in the face with Milo's fists than with his comedy routine. It was time to brave the well booze. He continued his fake laugh as he grabbed a cup, picked a dark hair off the top, closed his eyes, and choked it down. It was strong and sour, but the taste wasn't as bad as the texture. It was gritty, and though he may have imagined it, he thought he felt something in it move as he swallowed.
"Wow," Julian said when Milo stopped laughing long enough to suck back some more of the fermented sewage that passed for booze down here. "You're quite the jokester, aren't you?"
Milo's hairy face was wet with boozy foam, which didn't help him look any less crazy. "And you have quite an ear for comedy!"
"I don't...," Julian touched his ear. "Oh riiiight. Ear. Because I'm an elf. I have big ears. That's soooo funny."
"Oh my god," said Cooper. "Please stop. I'm begging you."
Julian doubled over in fake laughter and slapped his knee. "Yes, please stop! We need a moment to breathe."
"I'm an entertainer at heart," said Milo. "I tend to get carried away." His eyes were wet and puffy.
"You're a very talented musician," said Dave. "You could totally make it professionally."
Milo took a swig from his pitcher, and shoved a crate next to the one Dave was sitting on. He sat down, wrapped an arm around Dave, and pulled him in tight. Dave very much wished Milo's coat was buttoned, as their differences in height and the forcefulness of Milo's arm forced Dave to look directly at the giant, veiny moray eel between Milo's furry legs.
"I dream of one day playing for a real audience on the stage of Cardinia's Grand Concert Hall."
Dave took that as an opportunity to struggle out of Milo's embrace without offending him. "I can see it now," he said, standing up. "Your name in lights on the marquee." He spread his hands wide in a gesture of grandeur. "MILO!"
Milo finished the contents of the first pitcher. "Your kindness knows no limits. But when I dare to dream such lofty dreams, it's my stage name which I see illuminated above the theater entrance."
"Oh?" said Julian. "What's that?"
Milo stood, gazing at the ceiling on the opposite side of the room, his eyes glinting with the seeds of fresh tears. He mimicked Dave's spread arm gesture. "The Minotard".
Dave, Tim, and Julian exchanged brief glances. The laughter which followed was hearty and genuine.
Cooper, having his first taste of well swill, sprayed a mouthful all over the three remaining pitchers, further contributing to their lack of appeal. "Now that's funny."
The only one not laughing was Milo. He stared severely at each one of them in turn as laughter unconvincingly turned into fits of fake coughing. There was no mistaking the rage in his eyes this time.
"WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME?" He hurled his empty pitcher at the wall leading out to the lavatory, widening the hole by half a brick.
The fake coughing subsided.
"It's nothing," Julian scrambled for something to say. "I… uh… We just… um… I had something in my eye."
Milo bent over, resting his hands on his knees, and started crying. As his body shook with sobs, his dick jiggled like a dead snake.
Dave looked questioningly at Julian and mouthed the words, Something in your eye?.
Julian shrugged helplessly. What the hell was I supposed to say?
"Why?" Milo said between sobs. "Why do they always laugh at me?"
"What… um…" Julian appeared to recognize his Diplomacy skill as the only way they might make it out of this dungeon alive. He was choosing his words carefully. "What made you decide upon that particular stage name?" Move past the laughing. Get him talking. Attaboy, Julian.
Milo sniffed back his sobs and sat down heavily on his crate. "I am a poet. Music and words are the tools of my art. I wanted a name which demonstrates how I can combine two words into one, thus creating something new. I combined the words minotaur and bard. Minotard."
Cooper choked on another throatful of well swill.
"Something wrong with your friend?" asked Milo, a hint of menace in his voice.
"Don't pay any attention to Cooper," said Julian. "He's retar— He's not right in the head."
Tim was holding his breath and bending his index finger back nearly to the point of breaking to keep his composure. Dave had to get him out of there before he cracked.
"I need to go to the bathroom," Dave announced. "Tim, can you help me?"
All eyes in the room turned to Dave as all of his blood rushed to his face. Unable to think of anything that could possibly further clarify such a request, he simply lowered his head and stomped toward the exit, grabbing Tim's arm on the way.
The cavern beyond the brickwork was carved out of bare earth. Dave didn't need any special dwarven mining knowledge to feel extremely claustrophobic in there. It was wide and high enough for a minotaur to move around in, but the slightest hint of a tectonic shift could see he and Tim buried alive in a second.
A saucer-sized hole at the rear had been bored into the stone floor, leading into some sort of chamber from which Dave could hear slowly running water. The three inch wide corona of wet stone surrounding the hole suggested that this was where Milo had relieved himself.
Tim fell to his knees laughing, and Dave pushed his face down into the piss hole to muffle the sound. Tim's laughter turned into hacking, then gagging, and finally vomiting.
"Are you good?" asked Dave as Tim ineffectually slapped at him. "You get that all out of your system?"
Tim ceased resisting and gave Dave a thumbs up.
Dave released him, and they both sat back against the wall, where Tim swapped out the thumb for a middle finger.
"Don't give me that," said Dave. "I've got enough hoofprints in my armor as it is. That guy's unstable. If we push him the wrong way, he'll murder us all and go back to drinking."
"He's the one that called himself a minotard!" said Tim. "How does he expect people to react to that?"
"That's just it," said Dave. "I don't think he has any idea of how he comes off to people. He's big and scary-looking, not to mention a bipolar alcoholic, so people have always just reacted the way they think they're supposed to. He makes a terrible joke. People laugh. He calls himself a minotard. People say 'Oh, that's very clever' and laugh later behind his back."
"That's quite the diagnosis, Doc."
"Have you not been paying attention? When Morty locked us down here, he said 'It's not you I'm worried about'. I thought he was talking to me specifically, but he was talking about all of us. He doesn't give a shit about us. He can easily throw us out of his bar again. We're locked down here to protect his patrons and staff from his depressed, violent, booze-crazed minotaur friend."
Tim thought for a moment, then looked at Dave. "What do you think he meant when he said he'd flush us?"
"I don't know," said Dave. "And I don't want to find out. We've got to come up with a plan."
Tim nodded. "I know what we have to do."
Dave breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. What?"
"We have to outdrink him."
"Goddamnit, Tim. That's your solution to everything."
"Think about it," said Tim. "If we can get him to pass out, Morty might let us out of here before he wakes up."
"And how do you propose we outdrink him? Have you seen how big he is?"
"You can do it," said Tim. "You're a dwarf. You've got a Constitution bonus and all that shit."
"He's a fucking minotaur!" said Dave. "Compared to his Constitution, mine's just a preamble."
"Well then think. How can we–"
"THAT BITCH TOOK MY KIDS AND MY MONEY AND RAN OFF TO WILLOWHAVEN!"
"Shit," said Dave. "We'd better get back in there."
When they re-entered Milo's private drunk tank, Julian was wedged into a corner, both hands wrapped around his sloshing tin cup. Cooper was sprawled out face-down on the floor. Beside him lay the crushed remains of another pitcher. Milo was in the corner opposite the one Julian was cowering in, one hand bracing him against the wall, the other furiously choking his dire chicken.
"What the hell is going on?" Dave whispered to Julian.
"Do I really have to spell it out for you?"
"LENORE!" Milo groaned at the ceiling.
"What happened to Cooper?" asked Tim.
"Milo punched him in the face," said Julian. "Knocked him out cold."
"Jesus Christ," said Dave. "What did that idiot say?"
"Nothing bad. He just asked Milo if he wanted another drink. I guess Milo read something into it. He said 'You sound like Lenore' and decked him."
Tim looked at Milo. "Is that the same Lenore he's whacking off to in the corner right now?"
"One can only assume."
"WHY, LENORE? WHY?"
"So what do we do?" asked Dave. "I think his arm is moving faster. He might be close to finishing."
Julian thought for a moment. "Tim, do you think, if I put you on my shoulders, you could knock him out with a Sneak Attack? He's pretty distracted right now. You'd probably get a bonus to hit him."
Tim shook his head vigorously.
"Okay then. What if I summon a horse, and we –"
"What's all of this noise?" shouted Morty as his hooves pounded the stairs. "You're disturbing my customers! If I have to warn you again, I'll –" Rounding the bend in the stairwell, he saw Milo through the portcullis bars. "Gods have mercy! Milo! What's come over you? Milo! MILO!"
"Wha?" Milo's arm stopped. He turned his head. "Morty? You distracted me. Now I'll have to start over."
Morty shook his head. "You were once a great minotaur, Milo. I was proud to call you my brother and my friend."
"Come on, Morty. Don't say –"
"You have gone too far this time."
"Please, Morty. Don't –"
"I'm sorry, Milo. I'm cutting you off."
Milo whirled around to face Dave, Julian, and Tim. His eyes were full of crazy, and his erect penis pointed at them like a cannon, complete with a furry sack of cannonballs. Dave now knew the face of fear.
Morty reached his hand up over the portcullis and looked at Dave. "I'm sorry, lads."
"What?" said Dave. "What does this have to do with –" He realized that Milo's crazy-eyes weren't focused on them, but rather the pitcher between Milo and them. "What's happening right now?"
The next couple of seconds seemed to pass in slow motion as Dave's brain processed sensations and stimuli he didn't understand, all happening at the same time.
Milo dove through the air, his arms stretched out in front of him, toward the last remaining full pitcher of well swill. "NOOOOOOOOO!"
Morty pulled some kind of lever which made a loud clicking sound.
Sudden weightlessness.
The bottom of the pitcher rose from the top of the crate while some of the liquid inside sloshed out of the top.
Tim screamed, "FUUUUCK!"
A single tear fled Milo's eye as his hands caught hold of the pitcher.
They were falling. The floor had disappeared from beneath their feet, and they were all being swallowed by a putrid, moist void.
It wasn't a long fall. He landed on his ass with a splash in foul-smelling water that came up to his shoulders.
The light began to fade quickly. Dave looked up just in time to see the floor rematerializing above their heads, like a fog condensing into solid stone, obscuring their only source of light, the enchanted stone suspended from the ceiling.
"Magical floor," said Julian. "That's so cool."
Only Julian would find anything cool about being dumped into the sewer.
"What the fubbblllggllbl," said Cooper, the sewer water having brought him out of his fist-induced slumber.
"Light," said Julian.
As a dwarf, Dave could see well enough to move around in complete darkness, but his Darkvision was in black-and-white, and limited in range. Julian's enchanted gold coin added rich textures of brown to the spectrum, allowing Dave's eyes to catch up to his nose in their appreciation of his surroundings. He was about to throw up when something shifted under his ass.
"Shit! I landed on Tim!" Dave got to his feet and plunged his hands into the murky water until he had a hold of a body.
"No you didn't." Tim's voice came from behind Dave. "I'm over here."
Whatever Dave had his hands on was definitely alive, and much too small to be Milo. "Then who is..." He pulled it out of the water. A muzzle full of sharp, bared teeth hissed sewer mist at him.
"Dire rat!" screamed Tim. "Kill it! Kill it!"
Dave trudged hurriedly through the water, intending to slam the huge rat against the wall, when its arms and legs started growing.
"What the fucking fuck!" said Dave. "What's happening?"
"I don't know!" said Tim. "Kill it more!"
The creature's fur retreated into its pale skin as it continued to expand. It was increasing in weight as well as size, and its limbs and face took on humanlike features. Dave hadn't gotten more than three steps when he found he was no longer carrying a giant rat, but instead hugging a naked man.
"Unhand me at once, you brute!" said the naked man who had just been a rat.
Dave removed his hands. "Who are you?"
"Why are you down here?" asked Julian.
"Why were you a rat?" asked Tim.
"What the fuck are we doing in the sewer?" asked Cooper.
The rat man put his hands on his hips. "I would ask you those very same questions!" He pursed his lips and thought for a moment. "Except for the rat one, as that doesn't really apply."
"We asked you first," said Julian.
The rat man wagged a finger back and forth between Dave and Julian. "Now you listen here, surface dwellers! This is my home you're invading and my body you're accosting! I'll be asking the questions!"
Dave looked at Julian.
Julian nodded. "Fine."
The rat man's eyes focused on the glowing gold coin in Julian's hand. "Who are you and what do you want?"
"My name is Julian, and all we want is to get out of here."
"How did you manage to get so far in here?"
"What do you mean?"
"The Cardinian sewer system is a veritable labyrinth of tunnels. Even if you knew the way out – and it's clear you don't – it would take you hours to get to an exit."
"Hours?"
"But judging by the way you screamed like little girls at the sight of a rat, it's a wonder how you've lasted more than ten minutes down here as it is. What you need is a guide. You're just lucky you ran into me first. Anyone, or anything, else down here might have just killed you outright. Now let's talk compensation. I'm a reasonable wererat. Let's just call it... say... whatever money you've got on you right now. For that I will grant you safe passage through – Rapha's mercy!"
Cooper frowned. "You kind of lost me at the end there."
"What is that?" asked the wererat, pointing his scrawny finger past the four of them.
Dave turned around. "Milo!" The minotaur's fur was slimy with shit water. He held the pitcher by the bottom in one hand as he rose to his full height, sucking in air so much air that Dave could feel the air around his own head rushing past in Milo's direction.
"Have you been underwater this whole time?" asked Julian.
Milo breathed in and out a few times. "I had to... uh... finish something."
Dave, Tim, Julian, and Cooper immediately backed up against the sewer walls, scanning the brown water between them for any curious streaks of white.
"It sounds like we've got a long walk ahead of us," said Julian. "Let's just pay the – Hey, where's the wererat?"
Dave turned around. Sure enough, the wererat was gone. Not even a ripple remained where he had been standing. "Looks like he fled."
"Good riddance," said Milo.
"No no no!" said Tim. "He was going to show us the way out of here!"
"Best not to put your faith in wererats. They are a shiftless bunch."
"Yeah," said Tim. "I feel much better putting my faith in Drinky the Minotard."
"Tim!" snapped Julian.
"Fuck this," said Tim. "I'm done being nice. We're lost in a sewer thanks to this moron. I am literally swimming in shit."
"Your words cut deep, little halfling," said Milo. "But your fears are unsubstantiated. Minotaurs are never lost."
"Of course!" said Julian, looking more optimistic than anyone stuck in a sewer with a violent, alcoholic minotaur had any right to look. "The Minotaur!"
"Very good, Julian," said Tim. "It's nice to see you've caught up."
"No, I mean the real Minotaur, from Greek mythology."
"Isn't that kind of a self-contradictory statement?"
"He lived in the Labyrinth."
Cooper scratched his head. "I thought that was David Bowie."
"I'll bet my shit-soaked hat that his description in the Monster Manual includes something about being able to find his way around a maze with no problem."
Milo nodded. "I know not of this David Bowie of Greek mythology of whom you speak, but otherwise, the elf's words are true. I am incapable of being lost in any labyrinth. Morty dumps me down here when I've had too much to drink, intending for me to clear my head during the time it takes to reach the surface."
"That's nice," said Julian. "I can tell he really cares about you."
"To be honest, the stench of raw sewage tends to clear my head right away. 'Tis fortunate I rescued this last pitcher."
Dave had met a lot of alcoholics in his day, but he wasn't sure he'd ever met one so dedicated that he could masturbate underwater, submerged in sewage, while holding his drink above the surface. The last thing they needed right now was Drunk Milo.
"Maybe you should take it easy?"
"There will be time enough for that when we reach the surface, dwarf. The sewer is not without its share of danger." Milo started walking.
Julian summoned a horse to carry Tim and Dave, whose already slow Movement Speeds were further hampered by having to move through water.
Milo walked briskly, turning left or right at each intersection. Dave felt more hopelessly lost than ever, but Milo seemed confident, never stopping to ponder or second-guess his choice of direction.
They traveled for about two hours before Milo stopped dead in his tracks at the intersection of two large tunnels. The elevation was slightly higher here, and the water was thicker, barely covering the top of Milo's hooves.
"Why did we stop?" asked Dave. "Are we near an exit?"
"Very nearly," said Milo. He sniffed the air. "But I sense we are not alone."
Squeaks echoed out from the darkness of the four tunnels surrounding them. Dave felt Tim's arms squeeze him just a little bit tighter.
Cooper started to unstrap his greataxe, but Milo placed a hand gently on his shoulder.
"Your weapons will not harm them. I'll handle this." He called out into the darkness. "What cowards are you who hide in the shadows? Come out and make yourselves known!"
"Dude!" whispered Julian. "I think you need a few more ranks in Diplomacy."
The darkness came alive with the sounds of squeaking, splashing, and feet squelching through shit on all sides. Two by two, eyes became visible, followed by forms. Some were dire rats. Some were humanoid. The vast majority were something in-between. A hybrid form with ratlike features, including whiskers and a long tail, but bipedal and human-sized. Some of the humanoids and hybrids were armed with daggers or small, rusted swords. They blocked every potential escape route, but did not advance.
Dave held tightly on the horse's reins and whispered to Milo. "If they meant to kill us, they would have attacked already, right?"
"They are choosing which of us they want to eat and which of us they want to turn into one of their own," said Milo. "Mind you don't let them bite you."
"Thanks for the tip, asshole," said Tim. "How the fuck are we supposed to stop them?"
"There's no need for that kind of language." Milo addressed the crowd of wererats. "I demand you stand aside and let us pass, or surely you will know my wrath!"
One dire rat in front of Milo grew and morphed into his human form. It was the same one Dave had landed on upon entering the sewer.
"Silence, man cow! The elf carries gold. He and the Halfling would make fine additions to our family. Leave them, and the horse and dwarf for us to feed on, and you and the half-orc may leave unmolested."
"And if we refuse?"
The wererat laughed, provoking his many, many companions to do the same. "Your bravery is commendable, minotaur. I'll give you that. But we outnumber you ten to one, and you have no weapons with which to fight us. Satisfy our demands, or we shall tear apart every last one of you."
"Your threats are as empty as your tiny, shriveled sack. Scurry back into the darkness, where your kind belongs."
The wererat looked livid. While it wasn't fair to compare his genitalia to Milo's, even for a gangly human he was not particularly gifted in that department. He held out a hand. "Sword!"
A nearby hybrid rat person handed over his shortsword.
Milo took a long swig from his pitcher, then handed it to Cooper. "Hold this." He addressed the wererat. "Speak your name, rat. If you die with honor, I shall compose a ballad in which your memory may live on."
"My name is Roger," said the wererat. "Please, tell me yours, so that I may label the trophy I mount on my wall."
Milo snorted. "Very well. You may call me… The Minotard!"
The silence that followed was so complete that, had anyone blinked, Dave was sure he would have heard it. It didn't last long. The wererats erupted in raucous, howling laughter. Even those still in their rat forms squeaked and wheezed until they could scarcely breathe.
"What?" said Milo, the surprise on his face bubbling up into rage. "WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING? STOP LAUGHING AT ME!"
Dave cradled his head in his hands. This was the saddest thing he'd ever seen.
Milo heaved and trembled. The wererats only laughed louder.
"STOP! LAUGHING! AT! ME!" Milo ran forward and kicked Roger in the face. The laughter was cut short by the crunch of hoof against bone. Roger bounced off the ceiling, then hit the floor so hard that he bounced back up to a standing position, where two of his companions caught him.
His face was completely smashed in, a concave mess of blood, flesh, and bone.
Milo stomped back toward Cooper with tears in his eyes. "Why do they always laugh at me?"
Roger's face started to reform, like an inflating balloon made out of meat. When it was nearly back to its original shape, he shrugged off his friends' assistance. When his teeth had all straightened out and his nose was once again facing outward, he started to laugh. "The Minotard?"
The sewer came alive with a second deluge of laughter.
Milo balled up his fists, trembling violently. He turned around to face Roger.
"I can't take it anymore," cried Roger. He stopped laughing. "Kill them all."
A dozen humanoid and hybrid rat men lunged at Milo. He punched the first two, and kicked a third, sending them flying in three different directions, but they quickly recovered from any damage he dealt, and there were more leaping onto his back than he could possibly fend off.
"Cooper!" screamed Tim. "Behind you!"
Cooper turned around and punched an approaching hybrid in the face, smashing Milo's pitcher and blinding the wererat with horrible booze.
Dave swatted another away with his mace, while Julian jabbed at one with his quarterstaff.
"There's an opening!" cried Tim. "Let's get out of here!"
"What about Milo?" asked Julian.
The suicidally brave minotaur had fallen to his knees, cowering inside the flimsy protection of his leather coat. Wererats piled on top of him, and while he was able to gouge one here and there with his horns, it was clear his time had finally come.
"Milo's done for," said Dave. "There's nothing we can do. This is our only chance. Let's –"
"SHIT!" cried Dave and Tim as they fell to the sludgy sewer floor.
"What happened to the horse?" asked Tim.
Julian smacked a dire rat golf-style with his quarterstaff. It squeaked as it flew out of the range of his light. "Spell timed out," he said. "I've gotten so used to them dying all the time, I forgot they had a spell duration."
The opening Tim had spotted wasn't completely free of wererats. It was merely less densely packed with them. Exploiting it would have required the mass and speed of a charging horse. With Milo secured, more of the wererats focused their attention on Dave and his friends, who were already having a hard enough time fending off the first wave with their ineffectual weapons.
Just as they looked about ready to charge en masse, one near Milo screamed.
"SILVER!"
The wererats scattered like shrapnel, running over each other to flee into the darkness.
Milo stood tall, his right fist raised. His violin-like instrument was strapped to his arm, the long, double-pointed neck sticking out of the top of Roger's head. The rest of the naked man hung as lifeless and limp as Milo's giant dick.
"Milo!" cried Dave. "You're alive!"
Milo lowered his arm, allowing Roger to slide off his instrument into a dead heap on the shit-covered floor. "It is unwise to traverse the sewers without silver or magical weapons." He frowned at the instrument strapped to his arm. "It will require tuning."
"That was amazing!" said Julian. "Did you see how fast they bolted? What a bunch of pansies!"
"I told you," said Milo. "Wererats are cowardly by nature. They will put up a façade of courage only if they know they have no chance of losing. Now please, give me my –" Milo gawked at the busted tin pitcher on the floor, then up at Cooper. He had the crazy-eyes again.
"What?" said Cooper.
Milo clenched his fists. "I asked you to hold that for me!"
"Are you fucking kidding me, man?" said Cooper. "I had, like, a hundred rat fuckers to deal with!"
"You could have set it down."
"Come on, man," said Julian. There was Diplomacy in his voice. "Cooper didn't mean anything by that. He got taken by surprise and that pitcher was all he had to defend himself with. We all saw it."
"Lies!" roared Milo. He pointed his instrument at Cooper, still dripping with Roger's blood and brains. "You judge me, half-orc. 'Do you want another drink?'"
"Hey guys," said Tim. "Let's take it down a notch, huh?"
"I didn't say it like that!" said Cooper. "I was offering you a fucking drink, and you punched me in the goddamn face!"
"You're just like Lenore!"
Cooper grabbed his greataxe with both hands. "You keep saying that. I'm starting to think Lenore must have been an ugly fucking bitch."
Tim shook his head. "Well I guess that's that."
"How dare you!" said Milo. His voice shook with rage. He brandished his weapon at Cooper even more threateningly. "Prepare to face the wrath of my vioLET!"
"Your what?" asked Dave, Julian, Tim, and Cooper simultaneously.
Milo lowered his arms and sighed. "My vioLET."
Dave stood between Cooper and Milo. "Are you saying violet?"
"VioLET," said Milo. "It's a combination of violin and gauntlet."
"That's the stupidest sounding name for a weapon I've ever heard of."
"That's because you're pronouncing it wrong," said Milo. "The emphasis goes on the last syllable. VioLET."
"No," said Dave. "I'm pronouncing it right. That combination of letters only has one pronunciation. Violet. As in a synonym for purple, or a fucking flower. Neither of those invoke the kind of fear you're going for."
Milo snorted through his flared nostrils. "I'm. A. Poet! I combine words to create –"
"You're a drunk asshole!"
"I'm warning you, dwarf!" Milo raised his gore-soaked arm. "I'll –"
"You'll what?" said Dave. "You'll stab me with your violet? Oh, I'm so scared!" He wiggled his fingers daintily at Milo.
"Dude," said Julian. "Take it easy, man. A rose by any other name, you know? Could still tear your face off? Is that how that goes?"
"He needs to hear this," said Dave. He addressed Milo. "You know what your problem is? Nobody's ever told you that you suck at certain things."
Milo's rage softened into confusion. He lowered his arm. "Suck?"
"You're a lousy poet. And your comedy is terrible."
Milo looked at Julian and Tim. "Is that true?"
Julian and Tim shook their heads.
"Dave's crazy," said Tim.
"I thought your jokes were hilarious," said Julian.
Milo turned back to Dave, eyebrows raised like he was expecting an apology.
"That's exactly what I mean! They only said that because it's what they think you want to hear and therefore you might not kill them. Cooper, what do you think of Milo's jokes?"
"They're fucking terrible."
"Who are you to lecture me on –"
"That's precisely the attitude I'm talking about!" said Dave. "You're so used to people feeding you false praise, you can't take criticism. You either drive away or murder anyone who criticizes you. That's not going to get you far in show business, especially when you go around insisting that people call you The Minotard, and then fly off the handle when they laugh."
"It's not funny," said Milo.
"It's literally the only funny thing you've said all night."
"I told you, it's a combination of the words minotaur and bard."
"I didn't interpret it that way."
"How can I be held responsible for how you interpret my words?"
"You listen to feedback!" said Dave. "You are absolutely one hundred percent responsible for making your words clear to your audience. You need to understand that when you call yourself The Minotard, not one single person ever is going to think bard. When you call your weapon a violet, no –"
"VioLET," Milo corrected him.
"NO NO NO!" said Dave. "You're still not listening! That's not what people hear. At best, it sounds confusing. At worst, stupid. Why couldn't you combine a violin and a lance? A violance? Sounds like violence. Not a flower. You see where I'm going with this?"
"Hmm…" said Julian. "I don't know. That one's kinda lame, too."
Milo frowned. "Not to mention impractical to carry around."
"It doesn't have to be that," said Dave. "You're missing the point. You have to stop blaming other people for how they react to your behavior."
"Are you suggesting I change who I am?"
"If by who you are, you mean a violent, psychopathic drunk, then maybe yes. Can you really blame Morty for locking you in a cellar and dumping you in the sewer? He's got a business to run. You're lucky he lets you drink there at all. Can you blame Lenore for leaving? You can't raise kids in that kind of environment. These are people who cared about you, and you pushed them away."
Milo sighed and sat down hard on the shit-caked floor. "I appreciate your candor, dwarf. Everyone I ever loved is gone. What is there for me now but to drink away the rest of my years, alone in this sewer?"
"So," said Tim. "Which way did you say the exit was?"
"Have you listened to a goddamn word I've said?" asked Dave. "You're still making excuses to live your life exactly as you have been. You can still turn things around, but you need to make an effort. You're an excellent musician. You have that much going for you."
Milo looked up at Dave with his big sad cow eyes. "You've seen the way people look at me. They think I'm a monster."
"That's not true."
"Julian?" Ravenus's voice echoed out from the tunnel Milo was facing. "Are you down here? I've been looking everywhere for – NO!"
Ravenus flew into the light and landed on Milo's head. "Run for it, Julian! I'll hold him back!" He pecked furiously on Milo's head, and Milo just sat there and let him.
"Stop it, Ravenus!" said Julian, collecting his familiar. "How did you get down here?"
Ravenus ruffled his feathers, keeping a wary eye on Milo. "The site of the sewer collapse is just a half a mile in the direction I came from, sir. I sensed you were in peril."
Tim was standing behind Milo, jerking his thumb in the direction Ravenus had indicated, mouthing the words "Let's go!" He followed that with a series of gestures including Drink, Sleep, Milo, Crazy, Jerk-off, Me, and Drink again.
"Even your bird sees me as a monster," said Milo.
Tim rolled his eyes and did the Jerk-off gesture one more time.
"You're a big guy," said Dave. "You can't change that, but you can change your image in other ways. Clean yourself up. Maybe get a more colorful coat."
"And some pants," Julian suggested.
"Perhaps you could invest in a violin that doesn't double as a murder weapon." Dave crouched down next to Milo and put his hand on the minotaur's shoulder. "Do you know what name I see lit up above the entrance to the Grand Concert Hall?"
Milo lowered his head even further than it had been. "What?"
Dave waved up at the wall above the sewer tunnel. "THE VIOLINOTAUR".
Milo's head jerked up, his eyes wide and glistening.
Cooper snorted. "That's even –"
"… better than The Minotard!" said Milo.
Cooper shrugged. "I had a different adjective in mind, but whatever gets us out of here." |
3d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 15 | The sun was up when they reached the surface. Dave had hoped it would still be raining, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The only evidences of the previous night's downpour were large, muddy puddles in the poorly maintained streets of the Collapsed Sewer District.
Rolling around in the street earned them a few stares, but it got most of the shit off. When they stood up again, they evaluated themselves to be at acceptable levels of filth, so as not to be questioned upon returning to the Whore's Head Inn.
When the bathing was done, it was time to bid Milo farewell.
"Thank you, dwarf," said Milo. "You have touched a part of me which I feared would never again be aroused."
Dave could hear murmurs from the crowd which had gathered to watch the crazy people bathe in the street. He wished he was anywhere but standing eye-level to Milo's massive dong.
"You mean your heart?" said Dave, louder than was strictly necessary.
"Of course," said Milo. "What else would I have meant?"
Dave shook his head and laughed. "You can call me Dave. Take care of yourself, Milo."
Milo bowed. "Fare thee well, Dave." He turned toward the rising sun and skipped away, fiddling a happy tune.
Julian stood next to Dave, watching people scream and leap out of the way of the prancing minotaur. "How does it feel to make a difference in someone's life?"
"Hmph," said Dave. "He'll be back on the sauce in a week."
Julian nodded. "That's a distinct possibility. Only Milo can change Milo's life. All you can do is be there for him when he –"
"Oh my god," said Tim. "Can you two knock off this After School Special bullshit? I need to drink something that doesn't taste like fermented cow snot and pass out on the floor."
That sounded just fine to Dave. He clapped his hands together. "Let's go."
Julian frowned. "You guys don't think it's a bit early in the day to start drinking?"
"Fuck that," said Cooper. "It still counts as last night if you haven't gone to bed yet."
Julian wrung some of the shit water out of his serape. "You know what? Comparatively speaking, I'm liking Milo's odds." |
4d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Djinngle Bells | (Original Publication Date: December 10, 2015)
Tim fell backwards a short distance, his ass crushing something cold and wet where his upturned bucket had just been. Everything around him was cold and wet. And dark. Why was it so dark? He couldn't see shit.
"What the f-f-f-fuck?" The sudden change in temperature was taking over his sudden blindness as a priority. "Where the f-f-f-fuck am I? Julian! Dave! Cooper!"
He felt around. Soft, cold, crunchy. Snow. He was stuck in a small cavity of fresh snow. Did he get caught in an avalanche? How much had he had to drink?
No. No no no. That couldn't be it. He was at the Whore's Head Inn, and it was still late summer. He knew he was there because that's why he'd been in a sitting position. Where the hell did his bucket go? Where the hell did all this snow come from? Shit! How much oxygen did he have?
Tim concentrated on what way was up. His feet were on solid ground, so up was the opposite way. He clawed frantically at the snow, widening the cavity above him and packing the snow more tightly near his waist. If he packed it tight enough, it would support his weight, and he could keep climbing.
"F-f-f-fuck it's c-c-c-cold!"
His fingers were starting to numb, and he had to take a piss. Two birds, one stone. He unlaced his pants and pulled out his little halfling dick. The pee was good and warm on his hands, but not so good for the structural integrity of the step he was trying to make, as he found out when his foot went right through it.
"Goddamn it!"
"Tim?" Julian's voice was faint above the snow, but it was definitely him.
"Julian!" cried Tim. "I'm down here!"
"Where?" Julian was getting closer. "I can't see you!"
Tim needed a signal. He felt around to see what he had on him. He still had his crossbow. Perfect. He loaded a bolt, cocked it back, aimed up, and pulled the trigger.
A gurgling whinny answered his signal.
"Shit."
The darkness broke as the head of a white, wide-eyed horse crashed into Tim's snow cavity, spraying blood out of its neck. Tim covered his eyes. When he looked again, the horse had disappeared. His bolt lay in a patch of orange snow. He dipped it a few times in some clean snow, then packed it away. Waste not, want not.
Julian, who had obviously been riding the magically summoned horse that Tim just accidentally murdered, stood up and shook the snow off of his serape and quarterstaff. The snow was only up to right below his chest. "Was that really necessary?"
"S-s-s-sorry," said Tim. "I p-p-p-panicked. W-w-w-where the ffffuck are we?"
"I don't know," said Julian. He averted his eyes as he reached down to help Tim up. "Why are your pants down?"
"I had to – Oomf!" Tim's hand slipped free of Julian's, sending him face first into the blood and piss stained snow.
"Dude!" said Julian. "Is this pee on your hand?"
Tim spat out some soiled snow. "And now in my mouth, thank you very much."
"Julian!" called Dave. His voice was clear. His head was obviously above the snow.
Julian nodded. "Hey, Dave."
"Don't Hey, Dave me! What's with all the snow?"
"How should I know?" said Julian. "I guess it's just one of those game things."
"No," said Tim, lacing up his pants. "There's nothing in the game that makes a group of people spontaneously teleport from a pub to a fucking tundra for no reason."
"You think we were teleported?"
"What else could it be? I've been pretty fucking drunk in my life, but I've never woken up in Antarctica."
"Shit!" said Julian, as if only now realizing something was amiss.
"What?" asked Dave.
"Cooper." Julian turned frantically, looking in every direction. "Has anyone seen Cooper?"
"I've been down here in this hole," said Tim. "I haven't seen shit."
"Cooper's bigger than any of us," said Dave. "If anyone's not going to have a problem with a couple of feet of snow, it's him."
Julian pulled on his long elf ears. "He was passed out on the floor. What if he didn't wake up, and he's buried in snow? He could suffocate." He pulled the left side of his serape back and looked under it. "Ravenus. I need you to scout the area."
"It's so cold, sir," said the bird. "And I really am quite drunk. Couldn't you send the big fellow, just this once?"
"Cooper's missing. I need you to go look for him."
"Righty-ho." Ravenus feigned enthusiasm for his task through a stifled yawn. "Pip.Pip. Here we go."
Julian launched Ravenus into the air. Ravenus got in about three good flaps before he plummeted into the snow.
"Ravenus!" cried Julian. "Are you okay?"
"I am now, sir," said Ravenus. "My, but that's invigorating."
Tim could barely see Ravenus's dark form through the falling snow as he passed overhead. It was coming down hard, and Tim's hole was starting to fill back up. Every trace of urine and horse blood had been whitened away with a blanket of pristine snow.
"Hey!" Tim called up to Julian. "You mind getting me out of this hole now?"
"Did you wash your hands?"
Tim grabbed a handful of fresh snow, rubbed his numb hands together, and flung it down at his sides. "There. Are you satisfied now, mom?"
Julian forced his way through the snow into Tim's hole. "I don't know what you're so keen to get out of there for. There's nothing to see." He picked up Tim and put him on top of the snow.
Tim looked around. Julian was right. Nothing but snow as far as he could see in any direction, which admittedly wasn't very far. Still, it was nice to have some freedom of movement.
Between his high Dexterity score, his small size, and his proportionally large halfling feet, Tim found he was able to traverse the surface of the snow without sinking. He took careful steps to the edge of the trench Dave had carved.
Dave's head barely broke the surface. He must have had ten pounds of snow in his beard alone.
"Jesus, Dave," said Tim. "You must be freezing."
Dave shrugged. "Dwarves are built for this sort of thing."
Tim traced Dave's trench to the end, then the trench that Julian's horse had carved before Tim accidentally shot it, then looked at his own hole. He forced himself to remember where everyone had been at the Whore's Head Inn.
"Guys," said Tim. "I think our starting positions here are relative to where we were at the Whore's Head when we got teleported. If Cooper is here…" He turned around and faced an empty snowscape. "He should be a few yards in –"
"I've found him, sir!" cried Ravenus, flapping in from the direction Tim was facing.
"Good job, Ravenus!" said Julian. "Cooper! We're over here!"
"That won't do you any good, sir. I believe he's still asleep."
"Then how did you see him? Why isn't he covered in snow?"
Ravenus raised his wings in a shrug. "That is an excellent question, sir."
Tim's prediction on where to find Cooper was confirmed by the direction Ravenus had flown in from. He didn't wait for directions.
Moments later, Tim was standing at the edge of a crater in the snow. Cooper lay sound asleep in the middle of it, with only a light dusting of snow on his body.
"That's strange," said Tim. "How do you suppose he –"
*PRRRFFFBBBBTBTBTBTBTHBBBBTTT*
Cooper's loincloth fluttered as a long, noisy fart instantly melted what little snow had accumulated on him since his previous fart.
"Oh my god," said Tim as the noxious gas invaded his eyes, nose, and mouth. "What the fuck did you eat last –"
The fart-weakened snow gave way beneath Tim's feet, sending him crashing to the bottom of the crater.
"Tim?" Julian called out.
"AAAAUUUUGGGHHHH!" Tim replied. Cooper's fart was apparently denser than air, as it was much more concentrated inside the snow crater. Tim scooped up a big ball of snow, packed it hard, and threw it at Cooper's face.
"Dude," said Cooper without opening his eyes. "Knock it off. I'm trying to sleep."
"Fuck you!" said Tim, and hurled another snowball at Cooper's face.
Cooper yawned, stretched, and finally stood up. He walked to the edge of the crater and pulled up his loincloth. A steaming jet of dark yellow piss sliced through the snow like a ten-foot-long light-saber. "It's kinda chilly in here."
Tim hurled a third snowball at the back of Cooper's head. "Dude! You need to wake up!"
Cooper turned around, cutting down the top foot of snow around half the circumference of the crater, except for the part that Tim blocked with his face. "Oh, shit. Sorry about that."
Tim scooped up some white snow and scrubbed his face. "Is it too much to ask to go through a single day without being covered in piss?"
Cooper squinted, looking to his left and right and scratching his balls. "Something's different." He farted again, and the section of crater wall behind him melted into a pool at his feet.
"Cooper!" said Julian, trudging through the snow. "Thank goodness you're all right! I was worried you might have – Oh my God! What's that smell?" He'd broken through to the fart crater.
"Help me!" said Tim.
Cooper picked up Tim. "You guys need to grow the fuck up." He tossed Tim out of the crater.
Tim spread out his arms and legs, maximizing the surface area with which he'd hit the snow so as to minimize how far he'd sink. It worked. He barely left an imprint as he bellyflopped onto the cold white surface.
Julian did a dolphin jump over the side of his trench, diving into a patch of snow that wasn't connected to the pipeline of concentrated fart.
"Oh man!" cried Dave, the top of his helmet visible above Julian's former trench. "What is that – It's like bacon and cheese, only terrible!"
Ravenus flew into view and perched atop Julian's quarterstaff just as he was standing up in his new trench. "Where's the danger, master?"
"It's okay, Ravenus," said Julian.
"I sensed you were being violently choked. Show me who assaulted you, and they shall feel the fury of beak and talon!"
"It was Cooper's ass."
Ravenus looked at Cooper, then back down at Julian. "Forgive me, sir. My loyalty has boundaries."
"Don't worry. We're not in any danger." Julian hugged himself. "I mean, aside from being inexplicably lost in a snowy wasteland without food, shelter, or adequate clothing."
"I spotted a cave not far from here, sir."
"Sweet!" said Tim. "Let's get moving. Lead the way already!"
Ravenus looked blankly at Tim, then down at Julian. "Is he talking to me, sir?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Tim. Julian had made the mistake of choosing Elven as the language his familiar could speak, and so the bird couldn't understand anything anyone said unless they were speaking in a British accent. Tim cleared his throat. "Tally-ho, good chap! Start flapping ye collywobbles and show us to the goddamn cave…mate."
"Right," said Ravenus. "This way, gents." He launched himself from Julian's quarterstaff and flew into the snow-filled sky.
Cooper effortlessly plowed through the snow after Ravenus.
"Horse," said Julian. The horse that appeared beside him was brown this time, and did not look at all happy about suddenly materializing in a snowstorm. Julian mounted the horse and guided it around the circumference of Cooper's fart-hole.
Tim looked back. Dave's head was buried in the side of his trench. Tim threw a snowball at him.
"What?" said Dave.
"Ravenus found a cave. Let's move."
Dave pulled his head out of the snow. His face was red and his beard was white, kind of the opposite of normal. He looked across the crater at Cooper. "I don't think I can make it."
"Don't be such a baby," said Tim. "Just keep your head held high. The fart-air will sink as it flows into your trench."
Cooper farted, melting the sides of his new trench immediately behind him.
Tim shook his head. "That is, if Cooper doesn't keep filling it up. Can't you plug that up with something?"
"Sure," said Cooper. "Come on over here."
Dave scooped up two handfuls of snow, pressed them against his face, and took a long deep inhalation. He didn't exhale as he waddled into Cooper's fart cloud.
It only took a few minutes before a piece of the horizon grew darker, then the cave entrance sharpened into view. This place seemed like a barren wasteland, but with only twenty feet of visibility in any direction, they could be in the middle of a thriving metropolis for all Tim knew.
The mouth of the cave had the appearance of natural rock, but was a little too symmetrical. Tim suspected nature had had a little help. The same went for the stairs that led down inside. No one step was the same height or width as another, but they were too flat and functional to be completely nature's handiwork.
"Should we go in?" asked Julian once he, Tim, and Cooper were all under the lip of the cave. The cautious tone of his voice suggested he didn't think they should.
"Fuck yes," said Tim. It was nice to be out of the snow, but his clothes were soaked, and he was freezing. He and Julian looked up at Cooper for an opinion to tip the scale.
Cooper shut his eyes, grimaced, and stopped breathing.
Tim frowned. "Coop? You okay?"
Cooper exhaled as a jet of greenish-brown liquid shit squirted out from the bottom of his loincloth and pooled behind him like a large, circular welcome mat for Dave, who was just catching up.
Dave fell backwards in horror, then rolled out of the way as a shit-tendril flowed down an uneven section of rock toward him. "Jesus, Cooper!"
Cooper wiped some sweat off his brow. He was breathing hard. "Oh, man. Sorry if I've been short with you guys. That's been trying to get out of me since I woke up. Fucking chili."
"What do you think, Dave?" asked Julian.
"I think there's only so much you can blame on a low Charisma score."
"I meant about the cave. Do you think we should go in?"
Dave stepped carefully around the huge shit puddle. "I don't see how we have much choice. It's either go down the stairs, wander back out into the snow, or stand here and watch Cooper shit himself until we all freeze to death."
"But what if somebody lives here?" asked Julian.
Tim shivered. "Then they can tell us where the fuck here is, and how to get the fuck out of here."
"I just don't like the idea of barging into someone's home."
Tim made a show of examining the mouth of the cave. "Well, I don't see a fucking bell."
Julian peered down the stairs. "Hello?" The tremor in his voice was amplified by echoes bouncing off the cave walls.
After thirty seconds with no response, Tim looked at Julian. "Satisfied?"
"Not remotely."
"I can't take this smell anymore," said Dave. "I'm going down."
The steps hadn't been designed for dwarves or halflings. Even a tall human probably would have found them uncomfortably steep, but Tim and Dave had to descend each one like they were climbing down from a wall. Tim hoped there was something worthwhile down there, because climbing back up was going to be a bitch.
Tim knew Julian and Cooper were following by the sound of hooves clopping against rock.
"Do you really need to bring the horse?" asked Tim.
"I'm not going to leave him outside. It's cold out there."
"Why don't you just dispel it?"
"We might need him."
"How do you even get a horse to go down stairs?" asked Dave. "I read somewhere that they won't do it."
"It's a magical horse," said Julian. "It will go wherever I want it to go."
Shortly after the curvature of the staircase blocked Tim's view of the outside, it became too dark him to see. This didn't affect his rate of descent, as he was operating mostly by touch anyway, and he was following Dave, whose dwarven eyes could see in the dark, but was always slow.
The darkness didn't last long. There was light coming from deeper within the cave, faintly illuminating the rough rocky walls of the staircase.
"Do you see that?" Dave whispered.
"Of course I do," said Tim. "It's all I fucking see."
Dave scrambled down the last couple of steps. "Oh. My. God." His face was illuminated by bright white light. "You guys aren't going to believe this."
When Tim reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw something which, however briefly, brought warmth to his cold drunk heart. "It's a goddamn Christmas tree."
The centerpiece of the subterranean room was a fifteen-foot-tall conical tree in a bathtub-sized brown clay pot. It was decorated with red ball ornaments and white lights, like the 'classy' trees they have in department stores.
"Whoa!" said Julian and Cooper upon reaching the bottom of the stairs.
"Are you quite all right, sir?" asked Ravenus. "I'm sensing feelings of bedazzlement and wonder which I can't account for."
"Ravenus," Julian whispered, not taking his eyes off the tree. "Do you know what this is?"
"It's a tree, sir."
"It's more than a tree, silly bird. This is a Christmas tree."
"I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with that particular species."
Julian laughed. "This is a custom from our world. That means that whoever lives here must be –"
"Welcome, gentlemen," said a fat dwarf with green overalls and a bushy white beard who had just stepped out from behind the tree to make his presence known. Tim picked up a hint of malice in his voice.
"Are you from Earth?" asked Julian excitedly.
"From where?" said the dwarf. He looked flustered. "Do you honestly not know who I am?"
Cooper's eyes widened. "Santa?"
"What? No!" The dwarf's fat little fists shook with rage. He thought for a moment. "Here. See if this jogs your memory." He lay down on the floor and writhed as if in agony. "Oh! No! It's everywhere! It's all over me! It's in my eyes and in my beard!"
Tim, Cooper, Dave, Julian, and even Ravenus glanced at each other uncomfortably until the dwarf looked up at them expectantly.
"Dave's mom?" asked Cooper.
Dave punched Cooper in the arm.
The dwarf frowned and stood up. "My name is Gabruk."
Tim shrugged. "That name doesn't ring any bells. I think you might be mistaking us for someone else."
"Oh, it's no mistake!" said Gabruk. "How's this for ringing a bell?" He reached into the front pocket of his overalls, pulled out a small brass bell, and rang it vigorously.
Tim looked at his friends, who could only offer shrugs. He turned back to Gabruk. "Good, I guess?"
"Seize them!" said Gabruk, his eyes focused on something behind them.
Tim turned around to find a giant green-skinned man, solid from the waist up, but merely a cloud of vapor where his genitals and legs should be, smiling down at him.
"Whoa!" said Julian, waving his hand through the giant's gaseous crotch.
"Please stop doing that."
Julian jerked his hand away and stepped back. "Sorry."
The floating upper-half of a green man folded his hands and bowed his head graciously as if to say all was forgiven.
"Are you some kind of air elemental?" asked Julian.
"I am djinn."
Cooper pursed his lips and scratched the back of his head. "Like that Korean dude from LOST?"
"I gave you a command, Bazuul," said Gabruk. "Seize them this instant!"
The djinn bowed his head. "If that is your wish."
"Wait! No! Stop!" Gabruk waved his hands in a panic. "That wasn't a wish. It was a command. I am your master!"
"I am beholden to you for three wishes," said Bazuul. "Nothing more. When you make the third, our bond is dissolved."
"Hang on," said Tim, glaring at Gabruk. "Did you wish us here?"
"Not exactly. I wished to confront you alone. The djinn distorted my wish, cheating me out of my third wish."
"I will not have my honor besmirched in my own home," said Bazuul. "You wanted to confront your enemies alone. This is the most isolated place in the world."
"Wait," said Tim. "How are we your enemies? Who the fuck are you? And what's with the Christmas tree?" He looked at the tree. Julian's horse was eating one of the ornaments.
"I'll tell you who I am," said Gabruk. "Two moons ago, I was but –"
Cooper raised his head and slapped his thighs. "I've got it! It all makes so much sense now."
Tim was willing to listen to any explanation he could get. "What have you got?"
Cooper looked around excitedly as everyone, including Gabruk, Bazuul, and even Julian's horse, stared expectantly at him. "Jin was the smoke monster."
Julian shook his head. "What?"
"Think about it," said Cooper. "Did you ever see those two on the island together?"
"Spoilers, man!" said Dave. "I've only seen through season two."
"Well whose fault is that? The show's, like, ten fucking years old."
"Hey! Hey!" said Tim. "Will you guys shut the fuck up about LOST? We're in a situation here." He turned to Gabruk. "Please continue."
"Two moons ago." Rage burned in Gabruk's narrowed eyes as he recounted his tale. "I was but a humble cobbler, but I had the love of a beautiful woman from a noble family. We were to be wed in secret that very night. We were nervous, as you might imagine, and decided to step into a little tavern and settle our nerves over a bottle of stonepiss."
Tim nodded. "I'm with you so far."
"On my way from the bar to our table, I slipped in a puddle of urine." Gabruk glared up at Cooper, who appeared to still be thinking about LOST. "And you! When I tried to stand up, you broke wind in my face!"
Julian stepped forward. It was Diplomacy time. "I'd like to apologize for our friend. He has a low Charisma score, and –"
"The time for apologies is past!" shouted Gabruk. "The four of you laughed as I writhed on the floor, soaked in urine and the rancid vapor of a half-orc's bowels!Tell me, do you remember me now?"
Tim shrugged. "I don't know, man. That could have been any number of nights. It sounds like we were pretty wasted."
"Felicia, the love of my life, broke off our engagement! She said I smelled like her father and she couldn't go through with it."
"Oh, man," said Tim. "That's rough… and weird."
"I would have my bride and my vengeance!" said Gabruk. "I traveled the land far and wide, seeking someone who could grant me both. Eventually, I found and captured Bazuul." He nodded up at the djinn.
Tim looked up at Bazuul. "How did an NPC cobbler manage to capture a djinn?"
Patches of pink faded into Bazuul's green cheeks. "I was drunk."
Gabruk turned and walked further into the cavern. "Would you like to meet my bride-to-be?"
Tim followed, wanting to get a better idea of his surroundings. Beyond the still-unexplained Christmas tree, the cavern was shaped like the top two thirds of a perfect sphere, carved out of solid rock. The base was lined with bookshelves, a polished wooden bar, a fireplace, and a long curving sofa, on which sat a short fat dwarven woman with a closely cropped black beard. She wore a yellow and green kimono that looked like it had been made out of someone's grandmother's curtains, and showed off her hairy cleavage.
"Felicia," said Gabruk. "Bid good day to our guests."
Felicia stood and bowed. "Friends of Gabruk the Magnificent are friends of mine."
Gabruk stood by his special lady. "These are not friends, my dearest. These are the ones who would break our bonds of love."
"Gabruk the Magnificent?" said Tim.
Gabruk looked at the floor. "The wish for her affection was very potent."
"You used up a wish on that?" asked Cooper.
Julian elbowed him. "Don't be rude!"
"What?" said Cooper. "She looks like Dom DeLuise in drag."
Felicia turned to Gabruk. "Our bonds of love can never be broken." She grabbed his arm and crotch. "Take me now, my love. I thirst for your seed!" She shoved her own face into his and slathered him in slurpy kisses.
Tim averted his gaze, which landed on Julian, who was cringing.
Cooper looked down at his crotch. "I'll never have an erection again."
"This is wrong," said Dave.
"So, so wrong," said Cooper.
"That's not what I meant. This is no better than slipping a roofie into her drink. It's unethical." He took a step toward Gabruk, but Bazuul floated into his path.
"I can allow no interference," said the djinn, "nor harm to come to my master while I am under his command."
"Ha!" said Gabruk, prying his face away from Felicia's. "That's right!" He rubbed his hands together. "Now there's the matter of my third wish. I have a bit of a dilemma, you see."
"How's that?" Tim asked distractedly. He was still trying to get the mental image of two bearded dwarves sucking face out of his head. Was that racist? Or homophobic?Both? No. It was the slurping and sucking noises that had gotten to him.
"I now have to choose between wishing myself and Felicia back home and my original plan to have you all vomit up your own internal organs until you died an agonizing death."
Julian frowned. "That seems… What's the word? …disproportionate to our –"
"Come on, man," said Tim. "So we laughed at you for slipping in piss and getting farted on. That's objectively funny."
Gabruk stomped on the floor. "You ruined my life!"
Julian put his palm out at Tim. "Please. Let me talk." He turned to Gabruk. "Think about what you just said. Take a look at your life." Diplomacy check. "You've got everything you ever wanted right there beside you. You've got the love of a… beautiful woman." Bluff check. "And you earned it. Look at the feats of greatness you've achieved in the name of love. Who are we, if not the catalyst which inspired you to achieve those feats?"
Gabruk looked at the floor, as if considering Julian's words. Tim gestured for Julian to keep talking.
"Your first wish was born of love. Don't let hate poison the well. You have one wish left. You could do or have or be anything you want. Do you really want to waste that kind of power on us?"
Gabruk looked at Julian, then at Felicia. "I… I need to think."
Tim was hoping Julian would steer his speech into a suggestion that he'd use his last wish to send them all home, but not murdering them wasn't a bad compromise. Still, if Tim was going to wind up vomiting up his internal organs, that wasn't something he wanted to do while sober.
"This is a nice place you've got here, Bazuul."
The djinn flashed a wide grin. "Thank you, halfling. I built this place ages ago. Here I can rest my body and spirit."
Tim pushed his limits of subtlety. "That's a really nice bar."
Bazuul's eyes widened suddenly, like a light bulb just went on in his head. "Say! Are you folks thirsty?"
"Fuck yes!" said Cooper.
Tim nodded eagerly. "What have you got back there."
"Wait 'till you see it!" said Bazuul, suddenly rising up from behind the bar with a silver pitcher in one hand, and a tray full of glasses in the other. "You're not going to believe it."
Tim licked his lips. "What is that?"
Bazuul set the tray down and pointed at the pitcher. It rose from the bar and poured bubbly golden liquid goodness into six tall glasses. "An invention of my own devising.The Decanter of Endless Beer."
"Brilliant," said Dave, his eyes welling up with tears. "Absolutely fucking brilliant."
Tim watched in awe as the foam rose over the rims of the glasses. "If I had three wishes, I'd use them all on this."
"I'd throw in a nut," said Cooper.
Everyone in the room, including Felicia and Gabruk, stood transfixed by the flowing beer. Even Ravenus perched, mesmerized, on the edge of the bar.
Bazuul passed full glasses to Tim, Dave, Cooper, Julian, and Felicia. "And one for the bartender."
Gabruk cleared his throat.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" said Bazuul. "Did I forget someone? Here you go, little guy." He snapped his fingers and a small glass bowl appeared in front of Ravenus. The pitcher floated over and poured beer into the bowl.
Ravenus bobbed his head. "Much obliged, sir."
Gabruk's fists started trembling at his sides again. "Of all the…Bazuul, I would like a drink as well."
Bazuul smiled at him. "Is that right? Tell me, master. Just how badly would you like that drink? Your wish is my command."
Gabruk shook his fist at the djinn. "I could wish you into oblivion!"
"Don't bother, friend," said Bazuul. "I'm about to get there on my own."
Gabruk's anger was short-lived. He turned to Felicia. "My dear, would you mind giving me your beer?"
Felicia handed over her glass. "Anything for you, my dearest love."
Gabruk grinned, raised the glass to Bazuul, and began to pour the contents into his mouth.
Bazuul snapped his fingers, and Gabruk spat out a mouthful of what appeared to be salt. He hacked and coughed and spat out more of the white granules.
Tim licked the tip of his finger, and touched the bar where some of the granules had landed, then tasted it. Definitely salt. It was almost too cruel.
"WATER!"Gabruk rasped.
"I'm afraid I don't have any water on hand, master," said Bazuul. "But if you wish, I'm sure I can conjure some up."
"Brraaaaauuuuugggghhh!" said Gabruk, flinging down the glass of salt as hard as he could.
The glass didn't hit the floor. It floated up and over the bar, right into Bazuul's hand.
"Be careful, master. This is glass."
Gabruk stomped around in a little circle, his face turning beet red as he tried to spit more salt out of his dry mouth. Suddenly, he stopped and looked past the Christmas tree. "Snow!"
He ran past the tree. Julian's magical horse whinnied as Gabruk shoved his way past it.
The beer was delightful. Light and refreshing, it was the kind of beer Tim could drink all afternoon, getting steadily buzzed, but without getting drunk enough to start texting ex-girlfriends. It was the perfect beer, and this big green fucker had an infinite supply.
"I've gotta know," said Tim about halfway into his third glass. "What's with the Christmas tree?"
Bazuul furrowed his brow and looked at the tree, then back at Tim. "Do you mean the pukka pukka tree?"
"What the pukka pukka are you talking about? I mean that big-ass tree right there, with the lights and red ornaments."
"Those are pukka pukka nuts."
"Get outta town. Are you fucking with me?"
"See for yourself." Bazuul pointed his palm at the tree. One of the ornaments flew from the tree into his waiting hand.He gave it a gentle squeeze until it cracked. He lay the two halves on the bar, revealing a thick, light-brown layer under the shell, glistening with liquid of the same color.
"Well I'll be a motherfucker," said Tim. "Is that edible?"
"It's delicious!" said Bazuul. "Here, try some." A silver spoon popped into existence on the bar in front of Tim.
Tim scraped some of the nut meat out with the spoon and put it in his mouth. The djinn had not steered him wrong. It was like a mix between chocolate and coconut.
"That's fantastic!" said Tim. "Can I have some more beer?"
"Of course," said Bazuul. When his back was turned, Tim slipped the spoon into his vest's inner pocket.
Bazuul held the pitcher over Tim's glass, but didn't pour. When Tim looked up, the djinn was frowning down at him.
"Sorry," said Tim. He reached into his pocket, but the spoon wasn't there. Panicked, he looked up. Bazuul was holding the spoon. He tapped Tim lightly on the forehead with it and poured the beer.
"That explains the ornaments," said Julian. "But what about the lights?"
"I wouldn't recommend eating those," said Bazuul. "They are enchanted stones."
Julian nodded. "I understand that much. But why did you decorate the tree with them?"
"That they are decorative comes secondary to them being necessary for the life of the tree. I live in a cave, if you haven't noticed. The pukka pukka tree is tropical, and requires much light."
Now that Tim thought about it, the answer seemed so obvious as to make the question sound stupid.
"I must say," said Bazuul. He had forgone the use of his glass, and was now drinking straight out of the Decanter of Endless Beer. "I built this place as a means to get away from everyone, but it's nice to have some company." He slammed the decanter on the bar. "I like you guys!"
"I like you, too," said Julian. He raised his glass. "Salut!"
Tim and Cooper clicked their glasses against Julian's "Salut!"
Dave wasn't so enthused. He ignored them and grumpily sipped his beer.
Bazuul smiled at their strange custom. "Salut!" he shouted, and smashed the decanter into their glasses, destroying them utterly. "Sorry about that."
He raised his hand over the bar, pointing down toward the mess. His fingers twisted around each other, which looked extremely painful for a split-second, until his hand turned into a miniature whirlwind at the end of his arm. He lowered it onto the bar, sweeping up all of the beer, broken glass, and the salt he hadn't bothered cleaning up before. He lowered his swirling hand under the bar. When he raised it again, it was a normal hand, holding a tray with three new glasses.
Tim, Julian, and Cooper applauded while Bazuul filled their new glasses.
While Tim sucked the foam off the top of his fresh glass, Bazuul waved one hand over the other, producing four more silver spoons spread out like a fan. "Can I offer you good people a taste of the pukka puk—"
"Whaaaa!" cried Gabruk from what must have been close to the top of the cavern stairs. "Oh! Ooh! Ah! Eee! Ugh! Oh! Ow! Ugh! Ooooh!" Each exclamation was nearer than the last. The final one sounded like it was just beyond the pukka pukka tree. "Oh, my head. I'm okay." His breathing was labored. "I'm okay. I just need a moment to –"
*NEIGH!*
*THUNK!*
"Oomph!"
*SMACK!*
Thud.
Silence.
Julian's face turned pale. "Oh no." He, Cooper, and Tim hurried around the tree with Dave waddling behind.
"Fuck," said Tim. The scene didn't leave a whole lot to the imagination. Gabruk sat on the floor against the wall, his head slumped forward. His chest was caved in with a hole about the size of a hoof, and there was a splatter of blood on the wall, smearing down from where the back of the dwarf's head hit the wall down to where he now sat.
Julian pulled on his ears. "Everybody knows you're not supposed to stand behind a horse. They spook easily!"
Tim glared at him. "Just get the goddamn horse out of –" The horse disappeared. "What happened? Did I do that?"
Julian shook his head. "The spell duration timed out."
"Thanks, horse," said Tim. "Perfect timing, asshole. Dave! Where the hell are –"
"I'm right here!" Dave put his palm on the top of Gabruk's head. "I heal thee. I heal thee!" He shook his head. "Sorry, guys. He's gone."
Felicia started screaming from back near the bar. Her voice was fast and excited, and clearly very upset, but she was too far away for Tim to be able to make out what she was saying.
Julian shivered in spite of the sweat beading on his brow. "What are we going to tell Felicia?" he whispered. "I just killed her fiancé!"
"It's not all your fault," said Dave.
"That's right," said Cooper. "Dave fucked up his healing spell too."
Dave glared up at Cooper. "I was talking about you, asshole. Look at his boot."
Cooper looked down at Julian's boots. "Um… Sweet boots, Julian. What are those? Deer leather?"
"Not Julian's!" said Dave. "Look at Gabruk's boot. Recognize anything?" Everyone looked at Gabruk's boots. The bottom of his left boot was smeared with greenish-brown shit. "He slipped in your shit-puddle. That's what sent him bouncing down the stairs."
Felicia's screaming subsided as suddenly as it had started.
Tim patted down Gabruk's pockets. "Man, he'd be pissed to know that's what did him in."
"What are you doing?" asked Julian.
"I'm looting his corpse."
"Doesn't that seem… I don't know… kind of –"
"This is Caverns and Creatures. That's just what you do when someone dies." He pulled a small brass bell out of the front pocket of the dead dwarf's overalls. "Three wishes, and he doesn't have a goddamn cent on him." He pocketed the bell.
"May I have his eyes, then?" asked Ravenus, perched on a branch of the pukka pukka tree.
"No!" snapped Julian.
They walked back around the tree as solemnly as if they were walking toward their own executions.
Felicia was passed out on the floor.
Bazuul grinned at them from behind the bar. "Why so glum, chums?"
Julian stepped forward. "I'm sorry. Gabruk–"
"—took a nasty tumble down the stairs," said Dave. "I patched him up. He'll be okay, but he's going to take a little nap for a while."
"Super!" said Bazuul. "Who's up for another round?"
"We are!" said Dave, more enthusiastically than he'd ever said anything as long as Tim had known him.
"Dude," said Tim out of the corner of his mouth. "Now may not be the best time –"
"I have an idea," said Dave, less convincingly, out of the corner of his mouth.
Bazuul didn't seem to pick up on their secret conversation. He lined up their glasses and spilled beer into them, as well as all over the bar.
"Hey!" said Dave, once the beers had been poured. "You know what I'd like to see right now?"
"Your mom's hairy balls?" suggested Cooper.
Bazuul sprayed the whole bar with beer from his nose and mouth.
Dave sucked in his pride and continued. "I'd like to see Bazuul and Cooper arm-wrestle. Wouldn't that be fun?"
"Yeah," said Tim.
"Woo-hoo," said Julian.
Bazuul flexed his huge arms. "What do you say, half-orc?"
"Uh… sure." Cooper put his elbow on the bar and held open his hand.
As soon as Bazuul locked hands with Cooper, Dave grabbed Julian's arm, pulled him down, and started feverishly whispering in his ear.
When Dave had said what he had to say, Julian straightened up. "I don't think that's going to work. I mean, he's drunk, but he's not that drunk."
"He might be!"
"Excuse me, Mr. Bazuul?" said Julian.
Bazuul and Cooper were surprisingly evenly matched, their joined hands trembling above the bar.
"Yes?" said Bazuul. His voice was strained.
"What happened to Felicia?"
"She… had… some kind of… panic attack." The tendons in Bazuul's neck were taut as he spoke. "'Where am I? Who are you? Why am I wearing this?' Crazy drunk talk. She's kind of a lightweight for a dwarf. I cast a Sleep spell on her."
Dave pulled Julian down to his level again. "He doesn't even understand why Felicia snapped out of her trance. He is that drunk!"
"I'm… really… angry!" said Cooper. His body hulked out in Barbarian Rage, and the tide of arm-battle started to swing his way.
"That's cheating!" said Bazuul.
"No, it isn't!"
"Then neither is this!" Bazuul's arm morphed into a gigantic black tentacle, with which he threw Cooper into the pukka pukka tree, knocking the whole thing over and revealing the dead dwarf.
"Ow!" cried Cooper, struggling in the branches. "Fuck, that hurt!"
Dave looked up at Julian. "Hurry up!"
"Ventriloquism," Julian whispered. He cleared his throat and cupped his hand around the side of his mouth. When he spoke next, in a pretty terrible Gabruk impersonation, his voice came from Gabruk's dead body. "Oh, Bazuul! I'm ready to make my third wish!"
Bazuul floated over the bar and toward Gabruk's body. "Very well, master. State your wish. Try to make it an easy one. I've had a lot to drink."
"I wish to be alive!"
Bazuul rubbed his chin. "Hmph. I think that's a first for me. There's something weird about that, but I can't quite put my finger on… Ah, whatever. A wish is a wish." He snapped his fingers. "Your wish is granted!"
Gabruk's sternum crunched back into shape and the hoof dent disappeared as he raised his head and sucked in a deep, wheezy breath of air. As he exhaled, his head slumped forward again, but his chest was moving. He was alive, but unconscious.
Bazuul shrugged. "He wished to be alive, not awake." He began to rummage through Gabruk's pockets while Dave and Julian returned to their drinks. Coming up empty, he searched more frantically.
Tim didn't know why a djinn, who could conjure up anything he wanted with the snap of his fingers, was so hell-bent on squeezing every last copper piece out of a dwarf's clothes, but he admired his thoroughness. When Bazuul magicked Gabruk's clothes off and started shaking them vigorously, leaving the unconscious dwarf naked on the floor, Tim decided enough was enough.
"Don't bother, man," he said, taking the bell out of his pocket. "I cleaned him out earlier. He didn't have anything on him but this stupid bell." He gave it a little jingle.
Bazuul turned around and looked at Tim like he was made of spiders. "No!"
"What's wrong?" said Tim. "What'd I do?"
The djinn narrowed his eyes, then smiled. "Nothing. I was thinking of something else. It's the drink. Let's carry on then, shall we?"
Tim shrugged. "Sounds good to me."
"I'll admit when I'm wrong," Julian said to Dave. "That was a good idea you had. Cheers." He raised his glass.
"Hmph," said Dave, abandoning his fake enthusiasm. He listlessly clinked his glass against Julian's. "Cheers."
"What's wrong with you, man? I was paying you a compliment."
"I know. I'm sorry." Dave gulped back the last of his beer. "I'm a dwarf. This stuff might as well be water. I wish we were drinking stonepiss."
Bazuul grinned in a way that made the hairs on the back of Tim's neck stand up. "Your wish is granted. You were drinking stonepiss." He snapped his fingers.
Tim's stomach began to churn. "What? What's going on?" Thoughts raced around inside his booze-addled brain. The bell binds the djinn? I rang the bell. Why did Dave get a wish? Holy shit! All that beer I drank is turning into hard liquor inside me. He knew he didn't have much time to present an argument, and that Bazuul wasn't likely to care, but he had to try. "Subjunctive!" he cried. "SUBJUNCTIVE! SUB-BLAAUUUUURRRRRGGGGGHHH" Vomit spewed out of him like his mouth was a busted fire hydrant.
Julian was next, followed by Cooper. The three of them hosed down everything in sight with puke you could fuel a jet with.
"Hey guys," said Dave. "Maybe you should take it easy on the *hiccup* sauce."
Tim wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but it came out as "BLAAUUUURRRRGGGGHHH". Julian and Cooper offered similar retorts.
When Tim's guts had given all they had to give, a wave of darkness washed over him, from which he feared he may never return. |
4d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 2 | Tim returned, but immediately wished he hadn't. He woke up with a headache he wouldn't wish on Hitler. Every heartbeat pounded inside his head like one of those big-ass marching band drums. And then there was the sucking and slurping, like two dire slugs fucking inside his ear canal.
"What the fuck is that noise?" said Tim, opening his eyes. Two hairy beasts were wrestling on the sofa, one with red hair and the other with black. No, that wasn't quite right. It was Dave and Felicia, and they were naked.
"Oh my god." Tim turned away and tried to throw up. He was past empty. He heaved and heaved, but not even a tendril of spit escaped his lips. "Dave!" he groaned. "What the fuck did you do?"
"How about some privacy, huh?" said Dave, and resumed his walrus mating ritual.
How long had Tim been out? He looked around for something to anchor his mind. Cooper and Julian were still passed out on the floor. Julian's foot was close enough to grab without moving, so Tim gave it a wiggle.
"Julian? Julian, are you okay?"
"Please don't do that, sir," said Ravenus from up on top of the bar. "My master doesn't feel well." He staggered to the edge of the bar. "Rise and shine, sir. We must get you hydrat—" He fell off the bar like a bag of rocks.
"Nnnngggg," said Julian, then resumed sleeping. He was alive. That was good enough.
Now to check on Cooper. Tim couldn't risk looking at Cooper without getting Dave and Felicia in this field of vision, so he – Dave and Felicia. How did…? He didn't! He did.
"Dave, you selfish son of a bitch!"
Dave stopped slurping. "What?"
"You used another wish, didn't you? On that fucking she-bear!"
"Hey, man. Watch your mouth. I'm a dwarf now. I don't subscribe to the same ideals of beauty as you do."
"Don't get on your fucking soapbox with me. What about that sermon you gave Gabruk? You just mind-roofied his girl right after he did."
"Uh-uh," said Dave. "This is different. She loves me, and I love her."
"Are you even listening to yourself? She doesn't love you. She's just in another wish trance, and you're drunk as fuck."
"I'm telling you, man. I didn't use a wish!"
"Bullshit," said Tim, pulling the bell out of his pocket. "I'll settle this right now.Bazuul!" He rang the bell.
"Unnnnnggggghhhh," said Cooper. "My head! Knock that shit off."
"Hello, master," said Bazuul, who appeared above Tim. His tone was different somehow, more businesslike. "And how are we feeling this morning?"
"Like shit," said Tim. "Hey, listen. Dave claims he didn't use a wish to get in Felicia's pants over there, and I claim he's a fucking liar. Can you tell us who's right?"
"Of course I can," said Bazuul. He raised his eyebrows. "Do you wish to know the answer?"
"Why the fuck would I have asked the question if I didn't want to – Hang on a minute. Are you trying to trick me into blowing our last wish?"
Bazuul raised his palms innocently. "No trickery intended. I was simply stating the terms of the bargain. You may have the truth, but it will cost you a wish."
Tim sat up. "It's just a question, dude. When did you turn into a huge dick? I thought we were cool."
"I thought so, too," said Bazuul. "Right up until you decided to enslave me."
"Listen, dude. I didn't know about the bell! Oh, and that reminds me. Why does Dave get to make wishes when I'm the one who jingled the bell?"
Bazuul folded his arms. "You all had your parts to play in the ruse, and so you may split the three wishes among yourselves however you see fit."
"What ruse?"
"It was very clever, I'll grant you that. The half-orc defecates all over the top of the stairs, providing a nice frozen, slippery surface. The sorcerer's horse is conveniently left at the bottom of the stairs. The dwarf gets me good and drunk."
"You offered us the beer!"
"And the sneaky rogue swipes the bell away. Tell me, Tim. How long have you been planning this?"
"Are you fucking kidding me? The four of us couldn't plan a goddamn barbecue without winding up on eight different terrorist watch lists. Do you realize how much planning what you're proposing would take? Do we look like criminal masterminds to you?"
"Your bumbling idiots act is all part of the ruse. It is very convincing."
"It's no act, friend. We are the genuine article. Think about this. If we're so smart, why would we blow our first wish nearly killing ourselves with alcohol poisoning?"
"Even geniuses make the occasional mistake. I merely took advantage of your friend's slip of the tongue."
"Speaking of slippin' the tongue," said Tim. "How about our second wish? You think the four of us all cooked up this master plan so that Dave could fuck Paul Prudhomme on your sofa?"
"I'm warning you, Tim!" said Dave. "One more crack about Felicia, and I'll come over there and kick your ass!"
"Yeah, just put some clothes on first."
"Sir!" said Ravenus, hopping on Julian's chest. "You'd better wake up, sir. I don't understand exactly what's going on, but there could be trouble afoot."
"Jesus," said Cooper. "Could somebody shut that fucking bird up? I'm trying to sleep."
"Felicia!" cried Gabruk, having finally woken up. He either didn't realize he was still naked, or he didn't care. He had enough body hair so that it almost didn't matter. The tip of his dick was barely visible, peeking out from the thick salt-and-pepper crotch forest of pubes. "What have they done to you, my love?"
Tim sighed. "Fuck."
"I'll never love you, Gabruk!" said Felicia. "Not after what you've done to me!"
"Whatever they told you, my dear, it's a damned lie!"
"Is it?" asked Dave. "Explain how she got here, then, if not for you wishing her here and dressing her up like your own personal whore!"
"At least when she was my whore, she was dressed!"
Tim and Bazuul exchanged a glance and a grimace.
Dave's helmet flew across the room and hit Gabruk in the chest. Tim wasn't sure whether it was Dave or Felicia who threw it, but it pushed the confrontation from run-of-the-mill drunk, naked, fat people fighting to full on Jerry Springer.
"I'll kill you!" shouted Gabruk, nakedly waddle-running between Tim andBazuul. He tackled and straddled Dave's nakedness, and they tried to strangle each other while Felicia nakedly pulled Gabruk's hair.
"Didn't you say you aren't allowed to let harm come to those who command you?" Tim asked Bazuul.
Bazuul shrugged. "I removed all of your weapons when you arrived. I don't foresee any serious harm coming to Dave. Are you honestly telling me you don't want to watch this?"
"Not at all," said Tim. "In fact, do you know what might make it even better?"
Bazuul looked at Tim inquisitively.
"Throw a Grease spell on the floor."
"Hmm…"Bazuul nodded slowly. "I think I like where this is going." He snapped his fingers.
Felicia's feet slipped out from under her, and all of her weight came down on Gabruk, who found himself sandwiched between his rival and his former lover.
"Get off of me!" Dave croaked as he toppled the sandwich, sending Felicia across the floor on her belly like a fat hairy penguin on a Slip 'N Slide.
Bazuul looked down at Tim. "Would you like to… um… grab a beer maybe?"
Tim smiled. "You bet your green smoky ass I would."
Ravenus pecked frantically on Julian's chest. "Please wake up, sir! I have no idea what's going on, and I'm terribly frightened."
"For fuck's sake!" groaned Cooper. "I wish someone…"
Tim's heart skipped a beat. "Cooper, no!"
"…would tell that fucking bird…"
"Shut up! Shut up!" There was no choice. It was act now or risk being stuck here forever. "I wish we…"
"…to shut…"
"…were all back…"
"…the fuck…"
"…at the Whore's…"
It was a photo finish as to whether Cooper said "up" first or Tim said "Head". Tim looked at Ravenus, who was now flapping and hopping more frantically than ever, now that no sound was coming out of his mouth.
"Oh no!" Tim looked around at what might be the only home he would know for the rest of his life, and the people he'd have to spend it with. Dave and Gabruk were on their knees in a glistening grapple stalemate. Felicia was sobbing nakedly on the floor. With Ravenus silenced, Cooper rolled over and farted himself back to sleep. Julian was still out cold.
"I'm sorry," said Bazuul. "I'm going to miss you, Tim."
Tim looked up at the teary-eyed djinn. "What do you mean?"
"Your friend spoke the truth. Felicia was drunk, and sought some measure of vengeance on Gabruk. Or maybe she just wanted to make him jealous. No wish was involved."
"Then that means…" Tim saw Bazuul's hand raised, fingers about to snap. He lunged onto the bar and hugged the Decanter of Endless Beer.
The next thing he knew, he was back in the Whore's Head Inn, his arms wrapped around a splintery wooden table leg instead of a silver pitcher of infinite beer. Ah well, he'd tried.
"Jesus, Dave!" cried Tony the Elf. "Get off me! Why are you naked… and slimy?"
Tim stood up and confirmed that Julian and Cooper had both arrived as well. They were still sound asleep on the floor, as if nothing had happened. Maybe nothing had. Maybe it had all been a bad dream.
Tim sighed, slipped his hands into his pockets, and nearly had a heart attack when he felt something long and metallic in one of them.
The bell! Bazuul forgot to take it. Tim had a second chance. He could do it all over again, making real wishes this time. He could wish himself and all of his friends back to Earth, back in their real bodies.
He nervously pulled the item out of his pocket, and discovered it wasn't a bell at all. It was the silver spoon Bazuul had provided him with to taste the pukka pukka nut.
Tim smiled at the spoon. "Well played, friend. Well played." |
4d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Genital Harpies | (Original Publication Date: February 26, 2016)
Julian laid down his cards. "Three deuces." He carefully kept his expression neutral to avoid indicating that he already knew he'd won.
Raggart, the leader of their bugbear captors, grinned at him from across the crude three-legged table. His yellow fangs pointed every which way, like a pack of blind people trying to give directions. He calmly laid his cards flat on the table next to the small pile of copper and silver coins which had accumulated over the past few rounds. "It seems your luck has run out, elf. I have a pair of nines."
Ideally, poker a game in which all players should be familiar with the rules. That was especially true when money was involved. That was even more especially true when one's opponent was only keeping one and one's friends alive for the entertainment they could provide. It was Julian's high Charisma score, and the ranks he had in the Diplomacy skill, which had made the difference between being brutally murdered and enjoying a friendly card game. These same character attributes had also served him well in patiently and delicately explaining how "all reds" did not constitute a flush. He didn't know how much further Diplomacy could carry him.
Julian swallowed hard. "I'm afraid three twos beat two nines."
The fur on Raggart's forearms bristled out as his grin changed to a sneer. "How can that be? Three twos only adds up to six. Two nines add up to..." He frowned, counting on his black-clawed fingers until they were all used up. "... more than six!"
"That doesn't matter," said Julian. "A pair of anything isn't as... Three of a kind is harder to..." He was choking. He needed to hand this off to someone with a higher intelligence score. "Tim, you want to field this one?"
Tim looked at Julian like he'd just asked him to disarm a bomb with a pair of hammers. "Fuck no!"
They were unarmed and outnumbered. The only thing keeping them alive was this game. He might be only prolonging the inevitable, but it was better than giving up now and dying.
Julian looked at Cooper, who was three knuckles deep into his left nostril. Not exactly a think tank. Dave was terrible under pressure, and apparently a shitty poker player as well. Tim was just this side of sober, he and Ravenus (and, of course, the bugbears) being the only ones who could stomach the snot-like booze the female bugbears had been serving them. It was up to Julian to come up with a plan, but he needed Tim to help buy some time. He looked pleadingly at Tim.
Tim rolled his eyes. "Fine." He looked at Raggart, who was impatiently drumming his claws on the table. "The values of the numbers on the faces of the cards only come into play when two or more players have equal numbers of matching cards."
Julian understood why Tim had been reluctant to explain. Julian could barely wrap his head around that explanation. He didn't know what the bugbears would make of it. Tim needed a nudge. "For example..."
Tim flipped over the remainder of the deck. The top two cards were a king and a queen. "Okay, this works. Let's say two of you have a hand where nothing matches, but one of you has a king, and the other has a queen. Who wins?"
"The player with the king," said Horrig, a fatter bugbear with a long scar running down his left cheek seated between Dave and Cooper.
Tim nodded. "That's right. Because a king is higher than a queen."
"He likes to think so," said Grella, who Julian had come to assume was Raggart's wife, or whatever the equivalent was in this tribe. She looked at Julian's empty bowl. "Oh dear, you must be starved. Do you want some more stew?"
Julian looked down at the crude wooden bowl. Whatever that stew was, it smelled like diseased rat boiled in raw sewage. Of course, Ravenus had lapped it up like it was made of cotton candy and heroin. Julian was just thankful to be able to get the bowl away from him.
"Thank you, ma'am. I couldn't eat another bite."
Ravenus flapped his wings excitedly. "I could!"
Julian replied in a British accent, hoping none of the bugbears were familiar with the Elven tongue. "Eat Tim's." He passed his empty bowl up to Grella and switched back to the common tongue. "It was delicious."
"Thank you," said Grella. "That stew has been in my family for five generations."
"The recipe, you mean?"
Grella snorted through her ursine snout. "Heavens no. There's no recipe to speak of. We just throw whatever we catch into the cauldron. Aside from that, it's just a matter of keeping the fire going."
The fact that Julian and his friends were included in "whatever we catch" was clearly not lost on Tim. He was as white as a sheet. Julian nodded for him to continue his card lesson.
Tim rifled through the deck until he found another queen. "What happens when the king faces off against two queens?"
"Good times, eh Chief?" said Flargarf, seated between Raggart and Julian. He was the only bugbear Julian had gotten a glimpse of during the ambush, easily recognizable by his red right eye. Where the 'whites' of the other bugbears' eyes were a milky yellow, Flargarf's right eye was blood red, like maybe a blood vessel had burst in there. Julian hoped it wasn't a bad case of pinkeye.
The rest of the bugbears laughed and gulped back their dog-snot drinks, but Raggart merely grinned in appreciation for his friend's lewd remark. He was clearly more interested in the rules of the game. "Whether it be in bed or in battle, surely the king wins."
"Wrong," said Tim, less diplomatically than Julian was comfortable with.
"How dare he call himself a man, much less a king, when he can't best two –" Raggart's eyes darted toward the back of the cave where his wife was tending the bubbling cauldron. He leaned in and lowered his voice. "– women?"
"The statistic improbability of obtaining a higher number of matching cards is more important than the rank of any individual card." Tim's explanation was once again lost on the bugbears. "Let's continue with the example and see if you get the hang of it." He spread the cards around on the table until he found a second king, which he placed next to the first king, opposite the two queens. "There. Now we have two kings. Who wins?"
Horrig scratched his furry chin. "The one who isn't stabbing himself in the head?"
"What? No. That's not even –"
Flargarf pounded his fist on the table. "Trick question! It's the one with the larger army."
Tim buried his face in his hands, then let out an exasperated sigh. "Come on, guys. I'm trying to make this as simple as I can."
Flargarf stood up and wobbled for a moment. He steadied himself against the table and leaned over Tim, making clear their vast difference in size. "Take that tone with me again, halfling, and tonight I'll be picking halfling meat out of my teeth with halfling bones."
Julian was close enough to smell that horrible drink, thick on the bugbear's breath.
Tim held his cup with both trembling hands and stared wide-eyed at the Flargarf's jagged and crooked teeth.
"Sit down, Flargarf," said Raggart. "I believe I understand now." He looked at Tim. "In theory, seven ones would defeat one eight."
"Correct!" Julian blurted out when he saw Cooper start to speak. To placate Cooper, he added, "In theory."
Raggart spoke to his two comrades in their native tongue, which sounded like a bear speaking German while being stabbed. When he was finished, the other bugbears grumbled and nodded.
He shoved the pile of copper and silver coins toward Julian. "Very well, elf. You win again."
Julian shoved the pile back to the middle of the table. "Winning is easy when your opponent doesn't understand the game."
Raggart grinned and shoved the coins back toward Julian. "Losing is easy when you're planning to eat your opponents after the game is done."
Flargarf and Horrig chuckled. Cooper let out a long, rumbling fart, the smell of which was masked by the overpowering stench of bugbear stew. Tim and Dave looked expectantly at Julian.
Julian kept his cool. He had no doubt of the bugbears' intentions, though he hadn't expected them to lay them on the line quite so soon.
See and raise.
"Now that we're on a level playing field, what do you say we make it interesting?"
Raggart narrowed his eyes. "What did you have in mind?"
"One more round," said Julian. "You and me. If I win, we walk out of this cave alive. If you win, you all can eat us."
Raggart nodded. "You have yourself a deal, elf." His companions, predictably, chuckled softly to themselves.
"I'm afraid I'm going to require some sort of assurance that you're going to honor your end of the deal."
"Is my word not good enough for you?" Raggart challenged Julian. "Have you the audacity to come into my home and call me a liar to my face?"
"Dude," Cooper said to Julian. "That is kind of rude."
Julian couldn't believe he had to defend himself to Cooper. "We didn't ask to come into his home. They beat us unconscious and dragged us here in sacks." Diplomacy wasn't always about sugar coating. Sometimes it involved telling it like it is. He turned to Raggart. "If you would murder us, it's probably safe to assume you would lie to us as well."
Raggart frowned. "What kind of assurances would you like?"
"Give me a minute," said Julian. "I haven't thought that far ahead." What kind of assurances would be acceptable by both parties? Any guarantee regarding their safety was also dependent on their word that, upon losing, they would voluntarily allow themselves to be boiled to death in a cauldron. Julian couldn't see the bugbears accepting those terms.
"Swear to Zabir," said Dave.
The bugbears' eyes widened. Dave had apparently struck a nerve, but Julian had no idea why. He was about to ask, when Cooper beat him to it.
"Who the fuck is Zabir?"
"Bugbears are goblinoid creatures," said Dave. "Zabir is the deity of the goblins."
Cooper scratched his ass thoughtfully. "I thought that was David Bowie."
Dave ignored Cooper. "They may lie to us, but they wouldn't dare break an oath they made to Zabir."
"You ask too much, dwarf," said Raggart. "These terms are unacceptable."
Screw that. Dave was rarely useful for anything more than a healing spell, but he had just rocked the shit with this one.
"If you intend to honor your part of the agreement," said Julian, "then you should have no problem with Dave's terms. Maybe you're just afraid of being outmatched." He glanced down at Raggart's empty glass, then back up at Raggart.
Raggart, Horrig, and Flargarf were the only three bugbears in the cave who hadn't already drunk themselves into comas, but they weren't far off. Julian's group, with the exception of Tim, was stone-cold sober. If it came to a fight, a bugbear victory was no longer a foregone conclusion.
Julian was impressed with himself. If Raggart had picked up on his innuendo, he would understand that Julian was presenting him with a gift. He was making the cowardly-but-smart option (letting them go to avoid bloodshed) seem like the brave option (not being afraid to accept Julian's challenge). He wasn't this devious in the real world. This was the result of having put all of those ranks into his Diplomacy skill.
Raggart placed a large, red-hilted dagger on the table and raised his right hand.
Flargarf grumbled something in their native language. He raised his voice, looking back at the cauldron, and then at Raggart.
"I am afraid of nothing," said Raggart. He sliced his open right palm with his dagger. "I swear by the mighty Zabir, I will be true to my word."
Julian looked back at Dave, who nodded. "Good enough for me. Dave, could you give him a quick heal so he doesn't bleed all over my cards?"
"Sure." Dave reached over and touched Raggart's fingertip. "I heal thee."
Raggart sighed with the exhilaration that came from magical healing and wiped the blood from his palm on Horrig, who had by now fallen asleep.
He stared coldly at Julian. "Deal the cards, elf."
Julian's handmade cards were too big for his slender elf hands to shuffle the conventional way, so he shuffled like a six-year-old, smearing the pile of cards all over the surface of the table, then shoving them all back together again.
He dealt the cards until he and Raggart each had five. His crude shuffling saw Raggart right out of the gate with three kings, a far better starting position than his own hand of complete crap. The Arcane Marks that Julian had put on the back of all the cards identified each card with electric blue light that only he could see, but they weren't going to help him this time. They were fucked.
"I'll take two cards," said Raggart, much to Julian's complete lack of surprise.
When Julian looked across the table, he was shocked to see that the cards Raggart had discarded were two of his three kings. Was it possible that he was this stupid? No. He was intentionally throwing the game. Julian's innuendo had successfully made Raggart reassess the situation he was in, and the likely outcome.
Julian slid the six off the top of the deck, along with the Jack underneath it, giving Raggart a nice hand of sweet fuck all.
There was just one problem. Raggart's decision to sabotage his own hand left him with a king high, which still beat the crappy hand Julian had dealt himself.
The Five of Clubs sitting on the top of the deck wasn't going to help him, but he really only had one choice. Discard everything and hope for a pair of something or an Ace.
He slid the Five toward him, then stifled a sigh of relief at the Ace underneath it. The next three cards were crap, but he had what he needed. He gulped as he looked at the front of his cards, then gasped in fake horror.
"Cooper, Dave, Tim, Ravenus," Julian said as solemnly as he could. "I'm sorry. I've failed you."
"Fuck," said Cooper and Dave. Tim snored. Fear of being boiled to death was clearly not enough to keep him from slipping into a booze-induced coma.
"I must say, sir," said Ravenus. "I admire your calm in the face of impending doom."
"Shut up, Ravenus," Julian snapped. "I'm not calm. I'm very nervous and scared."
"But you don't seem nervous to me, sir. Quite the contrary, you seem –"
"Shut up, Ravenus!"
"Very well, sir."
Cooper and Dave were buying Julian's act, as were the bugbears, if Farlgarf's hungry grin was any indication. It would take more than a gulp and a gasp to override Julian's Empathic Link with Ravenus, though, which was now letting him know that Ravenus' feelings were hurt.
Suck it up, buddy. We're almost out of here.
"The game isn't finished until the cards are turned over," said Raggart. He flipped his hand over, and Julian feigned amazement.
"Sorry, fellas," said Julian, flipping over his cards. "Looks like it's just not your day."
The bugbears' reactions were the exact opposite of what Julian had anticipated. Flargarf's grin widened as he lifted a crude club with spiked with nails.
Raggart looked alarmed rather than relieved. He drew his dagger and slapped Horrig in the back of the head. "Wake up!"
"What the fuck, dude?" Cooper asked Flargarf.
Dave backed away from the table, his forearms raised to shield his face. "Did you forget the oath you made to Zabir?"
"The terms of the deal were clear," said Flargarf. "If you lose, then we get to eat you."
"But I didn't lose," said Julian. "I won."
Raggart frowned and lowered his dagger. The panic on his face was replaced with confusion. "You did?"
"Liar!" said Flargarf. "Look at the cards. Neither hand has any cards that match. And the chief's king beats your nine."
"But it doesn't beat my Ace."
"I'm about to beat your ass."
"Not ass. Ace!"
"Stand down, Flargarf," said Raggart. "Tell me, elf. What is this 'Ace' you speak of?"
Julian slid the Ace of Diamonds away from the rest of his hand. "This is an Ace."
"Is that not a one?" said Raggart. Clearly, he still wanted to avoid violence, but had to make a show of strength in front of Flargarf.
"In some games, an Ace counts as a one, but in most games, including this one, it's the highest card in the deck."
"I see."
"Have you gone mad, Chief?" cried Flargarf. "This elf has won every match simply by conjuring up a new rule on the spot. Now he claims a one, the lowliest peasant in the kingdom, is mightier than a King. If you believe that, then I say the dumbest bugbear in the tribe is wiser than a Chief."
"It's an Ace," said Julian. "Not a one. And the numbered cards aren't really meant to be representative of –"
"Shut your lying hole, elf!" said Flargarf.
Raggart laid his dagger back down on the table, and presented his bare chest to Flargarf. "If you would seek the Chiefdom, you are welcome to come and take it."
If they started killing each other, Julian and his friends might be able to escape. It was a second-best resolution, to be sure, but not one that Julian expected he'd lose any sleep over.
Flargarf lowered his head. "I spoke in a fit of passion, Chief. Forgive me. It angers me to see you made a fool of in your own home."
"The elf's explanation is credible," said Raggart. "The one card is marked with the letter A rather than a number. Obviously that holds certain significance." He turned to Julian. "You and your friends are free to leave."
"Great," said Julian. He paused a moment while the bugbears stared at him. "So, I guess we'll just collect our things and be on our way."
Raggart grinned, first at Flargarf, then at Julian. "That was not part of our agreement."
"Come on, man!" said Dave. "You can't just send us out of here unarmed in the middle of the night. That's the same as killing us."
"I am confident that Zabir will recognize the difference."
"Can I at least have my cards?" asked Julian.
"You cannot. We have enjoyed this game of yours, and wish to play more."
"Do you know how long it took me to make those?"
"Dude, fuck your cards," said Cooper. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
"And go where?" asked Dave. "We don't even know where we are, much less how to get back to Cardinia."
Raggart grinned. "The way is not difficult. Travel south until you reach a well-worn path in the woods. Follow it eastward until –"
"But that leads to –" Flargarf interrupted, but was promptly shut up with a glare from Raggart.
"That leads to the coast," Raggart continued. "From there, it's an easy southward stroll to Cardinia."
Flargarf genuflected before Raggart. "I am humbled by your wisdom." His eyes flickered briefly toward Julian before he added, "... and mercy."
"Now go," said Raggart. "And may Zabir guide you swiftly to your destination."
Julian backed cautiously away from the table, lest the bugbears have any last minute tricks up their sleeves, but they merely watched as he, Dave, and Cooper regrouped on the exit side of the table. "Thank you. You're being a very good sport about all this."
Cooper picked Tim up off the floor and took the lead toward the cave entrance. After a few tense minutes, they found themselves in the safety of the dark, monster-infested forest.
"Well done, sir," said Ravenus. "You really saved our biscuits back there."
"Thank you, Ravenus. It's nice to hear that someone appreciates my effort."
"Shall I scout the area?"
"Not this time, buddy. It's probably safer to stay close together, at least until we find the path." Julian looked around. The forest was dense with foliage, limiting visibility in every direction. "Hey. Do either of you guys have any idea which way south is?"
Cooper and Dave shook their heads.
"Does anyone have any ranks in the Survival skill?" asked Dave.
Julian and Cooper shook their heads.
"That's a pretty big party oversight on our part." Dave frowned at the ground and stroked his bushy beard. He looked up. "We could attempt an untrained Survival check."
"I don't even know what that means," said Julian.
"Some skills require you to be trained in order to be able to use them at all," Dave explained. "Languages, for example. If Cooper spent one skill point to learn the Elven language, he could understand everything Ravenus says."
"Fuck that," said Cooper.
"But as long as he continues being a stubborn asshole, he has no chance of understanding anything your familiar says. Other skills aren't quite so cut and dry. You don't have to be Bear Grylls to eat a bug. You'll probably still die if left on your own in the wilderness, but you've got a chance."
"We're not trying to survive for a long time in the wilderness," said Julian. "We're just trying to figure out which way south is."
"Exactly," said Dave. "Which is related to Survival, but probably comes with a lot smaller Difficulty Class modifier."
Julian frowned. "You're losing me again."
"It might be easy enough that we've got a shot at it."
"Okay," said Julian. "So how do we do it?"
Dave scratched his head. "I don't actually know. I guess we just focus on finding south." He put his index fingers on his temples. "Which way is south?"
Julian and Cooper followed Dave's example. "Which way is south?"
Julian looked for clues, but came up with nothing.
"That way," said Dave and Cooper simultaneously, pointing in roughly similar directions.
"How could you possibly..." Julian looked in the direction both of them were sort of pointing in, but nothing looked any different than anything else. "What are you basing this on?"
"What do you mean?" asked Dave.
"I mean, did you look at the way the leaves were facing? Or did you sense magnetic fields or something?"
"No. I just really feel like south is that way."
"Based on nothing? There's a word for that. It's called guessing."
"It's not based on nothing," said Dave. "It's based on our Survival checks. I got a strong sense in my mind that south is that way."
"I got it, too," said Cooper. "It was pretty awesome."
"Why didn't I get it?" asked Julian.
Cooper shrugged. "Shitty roll."
He stomped through the forest at a snail's pace, ripping apart vines and tearing off small branches with one hand, and holding Tim in place over his shoulder with the other. Julian and Dave followed in the wake of his slow destruction.
After an hour and several dozen yards of travel, they came upon the path Raggart had mentioned. It fit the description anyway, insofar as it ran perpendicular to the direction they had been traveling in.
"Thank fuck," said Cooper. "I need to take a rest." He set Tim gently on the ground.
Tim's eyes were open. "You can rest on horseback. We should probably hoof it from here."
Cooper wiped about a gallon of sweat off his face while scratching his ass against the trunk of a tree. "How long have you been awake?"
"I never went to sleep. I was faking it, hoping the bugbears would forget I was there."
"Dude! Do you know how much fucking easier that would have been with two arms available?"
Tim turned up his palms innocently. "I can't see in the dark."
"Hang on," said Dave. "You were hoping the bugbears would forget you were there? What was your plan, exactly? Were you just going to fuck off while the rest of us got chopped up and chucked in the stewpot?"
"I was going to assess the situation and act accordingly." Tim turned to Julian. "Let's giddy up, huh? Conjure up some of those magic horses so we can get the fuck out of here. We'll be safer when we reach the coast."
"I only have a limited number of spells," said Julian. "The bugbears took my bag with all my backup scrolls in it." He clenched his fists in frustration. "And my cards."
Cooper stopped rubbing his ass against the tree trunk and looked at Julian. "Who gives a shit about your stupid cards? The rest of us were trying to get out of there with our lives, and you were trying to negotiate for a deck of goddamn playing cards."
"Seriously," said Tim, facing a tree and unlacing his pants. "What's the deal, Kenny Rogers? Know when to run away. Know when to – however the fuck it goes."
"I spent weeks making them," said Julian.
Over the sound of urine splattering against bark, Tim sighed like he was about to lay down a hard truth. "Maybe outsource that shit next time. They were usable, but hardly works of art. The Queen of Diamonds' eyes were facing two different directions, and the Jack of Clubs' mustache looked like he had a squid trying to escape out of his nose."
"Hmph," said Dave. "As if you could have done any better, Picasso. Remember that pig anatomy poster you drew for your ninth grade biology project?"
Tim gave Dave a sideways glare. "I did that on the fucking bus on the way to school, dumbass." He turned back to focus on his stream of urine. "I'm not saying your cards were terrible. I'm just saying that, given a span of weeks, I could have drawn a better deck of cards with a crayon glued to my dick."
"It wasn't just the drawing," said Julian. "I put an Arcane Mark on the back of each card so that I could cheat."
Tim turned his entire body sideways to look back at Julian. His piss stream found Dave's boots. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
Julian had expected some kind of surprised reaction, but thought it would be more along the lines of 'Bravo!' and 'Well done!'. "What's the problem? Those cards just saved our asses."
"You're lucky they were just a couple of bugbear grunts," said Tim. "How hard do you think that bullshit zero-level spell would have been to detect for someone with just a smidge of magic savvy? You try to cheat a wizard, and he will Lightning Bolt your stupid ass, and feed the smoldering pile of guts that used to be you to his familiar. Now how about some horses?"
"If I use up two of my Mount spells, that's two less Magic Missiles I'll have if we run into monsters. I think we should just walk."
"Good point," said Tim. He raised his index finger. "Counterpoint. Dave is slow as fuck."
"I don't think that's a counterpoint," said Dave. "I think that's just you being a dick."
Tim ignored him. "The faster we move through the woods, the fewer Random Encounters we are likely to have, thereby nullifying the potential disadvantage of not hanging on to your two shitty Magic Missiles."
"But –"
"Furthermore, with the rest of us weaponless, the likelihood of us surviving an attack by anything more than a one-legged kobold, even with the awesome power of your two extra Magic Missiles, are slim to none."
Julian looked at Dave and Cooper. "Do you guys agree?"
Dave nodded. Cooper nodded and farted. Julian would have preferred to deliberate a bit more, as he suspected both of their votes were more motivated by laziness than by self-preservation, but the rancid cloud squealing its way out of Cooper's ass made a compelling argument to get out of the area as quickly as possible.
"Horse," said Julian, and immediately repeated the incantation. Two horses popped into existence on the path, one black and the other brown.
Cooper helped Dave onto the brown horse's saddle, and Julian climbed on behind him. It wasn't the most comfortable way to ride, but it was favorable to blowing a third spell.
On the black horse, Tim stood behind Cooper, holding on to his shoulders.
The twisty path limited the usefulness of Cooper and Dave's Darkvision, and roots and branches threatened to trip the horses or knock them off their mounts; they were unable to travel faster than a slow trot.
After an hour of riding, Julian's arms were getting sore from holding on to Dave. He didn't know how much longer he could last. "This forest is starting to creep me out. And I still don't smell any sea air. Halflings have a keen sense of smell, don't they? Can you smell anything, Tim?"
"You're thinking of gnomes," said Tim. "Anyway, I could be snorting saltwater right now, and still wouldn't be able to smell anything but Cooper's perpetual stream of farts."
Cooper glared back. "The more you bitch about it, the better I feel about it. I'm brewing up a nice one for your right now."
"You guys chill out," said Dave. "It looks like we'll be out of the woods after we get past those two big oak trees."
Julian looked over Dave's right shoulder. His Low-Light Vision was no match for Dave's Darkvision, but he could just barely make out the two oaks Dave spoke of. Their interlaced branches formed an arc over the path. As hard as he strained his eyes, he could see nothing of the terrain beyond.
Blinking a few times to relax his eyes, Julian let his gaze fall lazily to the ground, where he caught a flicker of movement in his periphery. Whatever had moved was long and serpentine.
"Snake!" Julian shrieked. He was a little embarrassed for reacting like that for something as mundane as a snake while they were in a world where they'd faced off against much more dangerous creatures than that. And then he was more embarrassed when a closer inspection revealed that what he'd saw was, in fact, only a vine. "Sorry. False alarm."
He could have sworn he saw it move. It was just a combination of hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and general paranoia playing tricks with his mind. It was an odd-looking species of vine. At its thickest, it was about as big around as Julian's upper arm. Smaller vines grew out from the main shaft with leaves which, with a little imagination, looked like gnarled human hands.
"What kind of vines do you suppose these –" As he turned to the others, he noticed Tim was missing from the back of Cooper's horse. "What happened to Tim?" When he looked back, he found Tim ten feet back, suspended from one of the lower-hanging oak branches by one of those strange vines wrapped around his neck. "Tim!"
Before anyone had a chance to react, both horses started screaming. Julian looked down at Cooper's horse. Vines were slithering up its legs, immobilizing it. He could safely assume the horse that he and Dave were riding was getting the same treatment. That assumption was confirmed when he felt a snakelike tendril brush against his leg.
"Master," cried Ravenus as he launched himself from Julian's shoulder. "Be careful!"
"Branches!" Julian shouted as he grabbed the oak branch they were passing under. He jerked his feet up and pulled himself onto the branch. There were a few vines in the trees, such as the one which currently had Tim, but it was nothing like the ground, which was now a slithering, writhing mass of vegetation.
Cooper had no trouble pulling himself out of harm's way, but Dave's arms were too short to reach a branch.
"Help!" cried Dave, losing elevation as his horse succumbed to the tangle of vines.
Julian and Cooper each grabbed one of Dave's outstretched arms and started to pull. Dave was a solid mass of dwarf, to be sure, and wore metal armor which weighed him down even more, but he felt somehow heavier than he should. When Julian looked down, he discovered the reason they were having such a hard time pulling him up. A vine had coiled itself around Dave's right leg.
"Shit!" said Julian.
"You hold Dave," said Cooper. "I've got to go save Tim."
"What are you talking about?" cried Julian. "I'm like eighty-five pounds soaking wet!"
"Don't let me go!" said Dave. He was sweating through the leopard fur on his wrist, and Julian's tenuous grip was growing even more tenuous.
"I'm okay!" shouted Tim. "Help Dave."
Julian looked back. Tim was still suspended from the tree, but now on his terms. He was holding on to the dead, severed vine with one hand, and holding a shortsword in his other.
"Where the hell did you get that?" asked Julian.
"I swiped it from the bugbears while the rest of you were jerking each other off. Here, catch." Tim tossed the sword to Julian, who let go of Dave to catch it.
It was a clumsy catch, but Julian managed to grip the handle without losing any fingers. Holding it in his own hand, he realized that it was a large dagger. It had only looked like a shortsword in proportion to Tim.
The horses stopped screaming, which meant that the vines had finally strangled them to death. Since magically summoned horses disappear when they die, this also meant that Dave had lost support from below, and a bunch of confused vines groping around for something to grab on to.
"Cut the fucking vines already!" cried Cooper. "I'm losing Dave!"
Julian wrapped his legs around the branch and hung upside down. He wasn't even close to being able to cut the vine wrapped around Dave's right leg, much less the ones which were now threatening to wrap around his left.
"I can't reach him!" said Julian. "You'll have to pull harder!"
"I'm pulling as hard as I fucking can!"
"Idiot!" said Tim, who had climbed onto the branch he'd been hanging from. "Use your Barbarian Rage!"
"Fuck y–" Cooper paused mid-expletive. "Oh, that's actually a good idea. I'M REALLY ANGRY!"
Julian wasn't at an angle where he could see Cooper's body hulking out, but he could see the expression on Dave's face turn from panic to pain plain enough.
"Ow! My fucking arm!" screamed Dave, but he started to rise.
Hanging onto the branch with both legs and one arm, Julian inched a little closer to Dave. As soon as the vine was in striking distance, Julian hacked at it with the big dagger.
"You're doing it wrong," said Tim. "Use the other side!"
Julian was confused. Surely he didn't mean... "You mean the handle?"
Tim slapped his palm against his forehead. "No, dumbass. The other side of the blade. The serrated side. Saw, don't chop."
Julian maneuvered the dagger in his hand until it was facing the opposite way. He sawed at the vine, and found Tim's method to be much more efficient. The blade's teeth cut through the vine in a matter of seconds. Dave, now free of the vine's grip, rose out of sight.
When Julian righted himself on the branch, Cooper was all bulked up, crazy-eyed, and sweaty, but Dave was curiously still out of sight.
"Where's Dave?" asked Julian.
Cooper panted heavily as his body deflated into its usual flabby state. He looked up.
Julian followed Cooper's gaze, and found Dave straddling a branch about ten feet higher than theirs, hugging the tree trunk. "You okay?"
"I'm not really big on heights," said Dave. "And I think my right arm and left leg are a little longer than they're supposed to be, but otherwise I'm good."
With a bit of coaxing, they were able to talk Dave down from his higher branch, and the four of them climbed down a branch on the east-facing side of the tree, where they were able to hop to the ground outside of the forest. There was still no hint of coastline. They were in some kind of valley, the view ahead of them blocked by massive, sheer cliff faces.
Looking back into the tree tunnel, Julian caught the last of the bloodthirsty vines receding back into either side of the path, waiting for the next poor sucker who fancied a quiet walk through the woods.
"That was a close one, eh?" said Ravenus. "Pity about the horses."
Julian shuddered. "Can you imagine if we hadn't been on horseback?"
"Yeah," said Tim. "We'd have been fucked. Can I have my dagger back?"
"Oh, you mean this dagger?" Julian held up the dagger, but didn't offer it to Tim. "You mean the dagger you stole from the monster who wanted to eat us while I was in the middle of negotiating a peaceful resolution?"
"That's the one."
"How do you justify giving me shit about making a marked deck of cards after pulling a stunt like that?"
"That was kind of stupid," said Dave. "If they had caught you, it would have come down to a fight, and the only one of us that would have been armed would have been you."
Tim pointed at Dave. "That dagger just saved your fat ass."
"Just like my cards saved all our asses," said Julian.
"Okay, fine. Great job. Happy? Can I have my dagger now?"
"Sure. That was all I wanted to –"
"My father's dagger!" shouted Raggart's voice from behind them.
"Never mind," said Tim. "You keep it."
When Julian turned around, he found Raggart, Flargarf, and Horrig, approaching cautiously and brandishing long heavy-bladed machetes, the kind that would be ideal for cutting freshly-killed bodies out of a tangle of carnivorous vines. Horrig was also wearing Julian's bag, though their difference in body styles meant that the cross strap had the bag resting just under Horrig's armpit, rather than where Julian wore it at the hip.
"I don't want to seem unappreciative," said Cooper, "but you guys kinda suck at giving directions."
Raggart grinned. "You made better time than I expected. Tell me, how did you escape the assassin vines?"
Julian handed Cooper the dagger, stepped forward, and raised his fists in the air. "With the power of my great sorcery!"
Tim and Cooper laughed through their noses, and Julian discovered what it felt like to fail an Intimidate check.
"Listen," Julian continued. "The only thing different between now and in your cave is that you don't have a horde of bugbears to back you up."
"Do you think I fear death, elf?" asked Raggart.
Julian took a step back. "Well I kind of thought... I mean, it's only natural. Back at the –"
"I would not risk the lives of the women and children of my clan, but I would take my own life before I surrender to an elf."
Julian scrambled to think of a way to help Raggart out of the bravado hole he was digging himself into. "Who said anything about surrender? We aren't even fighting. We each mistakenly took something from the other, and this is just a hostage exchange. You give me my bag, and we'll give you your dagger."
"Like fuck we will!" said Tim.
"Tim," snapped Julian. "Shut up! I'm trying to diplo... mate? Diplomaciate? Diplo–"
"Don't bother," said Raggart. "I shall take my father's dagger out of the half-orc's dead hand."
Cooper stepped forward, brandishing the dagger. "You can take it out of my ASS!"
The bugbears paused briefly to exchange confused glances, then continued pressing forward.
Diplomacy had failed. A fight was inevitable. Julian was down to one first level spell in his head, but if he could get his hands back on his bag, he'd be able to use his back-up scrolls.
"Everyone gang up on the one coming from ten o'clock." Julian couldn't recall ever seeing any clocks in this world, so the bugbears would have no frame of reference. His order might give them a slight edge.
"Is that the one on the left?" asked Cooper.
Julian sighed. "Yes, Cooper."
"What difference does it make who we attack first?" asked Dave, glancing at Horrig. "Hang on... Is this about your stupid cards again?"
"What? Of course not! Why would you even – Wait... Do you hear that?" A strange and beautiful melody flowed down with the breeze from atop the cliffs ahead.
To Julian's surprise, the bugbears lowered their weapons and tilted their heads so that their ears faced upward, toward the source of the sound.
"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard," said Horrig, a tear rolling down the long scar on his cheek. He did a complete about-face and started walking toward the cliff.
Raggart's eyes were watery as well, but he shook off the song's enchanting effect when he spotted his subordinate retreating. "Horrig! Where do you think you're going?"
"The song," said Flargarf, who now also turned his back on his leader. "Must... find... the song..."
"Hey!" Julian shouted after Horrig. "Can you at least leave my bag behind?"
Horrig didn't respond. He and Flargarf continued their entranced journey in search of the song's source.
Scrolls or no scrolls, they now had enough of an advantage over Raggart that Julian might have another shot at ending their conflict without violence. He put his hands on his hips and attempted to smile in such a way that expressed confidence without being too cocky.
"It would appear the circumstances have changed," said Julian. "Do you still want to –"
Cooper walked past him, dagger in hand.
"Hey, Coop!" said Julian. "Chill out. We can end this peacefull–"
"Surrender my father's dagger at once!" demanded Raggart. "Or in Zabir's name, I'll –"
Cooper tossed the dagger to Raggart. "Dude. Take it. Just shut up so I can hear the song."
Raggart dropped his machete to catch his prized dagger with both hands, then gawked at Cooper as he walked right by him. "Oh. Um... Thank you."
Cooper squirted out a fart in response.
"Cooper!" cried Julian. "Why the hell did you –" Dave and Tim followed Cooper, mouths hanging open and eyes glazed over. "Guys! What the hell are you doing?"
They continued walking as if Julian hadn't even spoken.
Ravenus was standing on the ground, watching everything in curious oblivion, when suddenly his chest puffed out and his beak opened wide. "What is that?"
"Oh no, Ravenus. Not you too," said Julian. "Come on. Shake it off. It's just music."
"A thousand pardons, sir. I wasn't speaking of the music." Ravenus inhaled deeply. "Can you smell that?"
Julian didn't smell anything out of the ordinary, and didn't make any efforts to sniff the air more acutely. If Ravenus thought it smelled good, there was a good chance it smelled like rotting flesh.
"May I go sir?"
Julian frowned. "Don't go far. And if you see what's singing, come back and report."
"Very good, sir!" Ravenus flew off in the direction of the cliff face, but stayed low to the ground. Julian lost sight of him beyond a drop in elevation.
"I gave you an order!" Raggart barked at Horrig. He made a grab at his subordinate's arm, but was elbowed in the face. "How dare you... Who do you think..." The shocked words honked out from his hands cupped over his face. Horrig paid him no further attention as he continued toward the base of the cliff.
Julian wasn't even going to try the same tactic on Cooper. He frowned at Raggart, who was still wheezing through his bloodied nose. "Do you think we should just follow along and see what's going on at the source?"
"Fools!" said Raggart. "Let them meet what fate awaits them!"
"I don't think you really mean that," said Julian. "Those are your friends."
"They'll be meat for the stewpot soon enough, as will you and yours."
Raggart was talking a big game, but Julian noted the conspicuous lack of stabbing he was doing as they walked together behind their entranced companions.
Julian tried to think of something to ask Raggart. Something slightly personal, but not too intrusive. Just enough for them to do some bonding, so that maybe when they got out of whatever was going on here, they might be able to go their separate ways peacefully.
"So... How many children do you have?"
Raggart grunted and gripped the handle of his dagger more tightly.
Too personal. Best to cut off that line of questioning. "I bet you're a great father."
"My son was born with only two testicles, so we ate him. My wife is no longer able to conceive."
Fuck! Julian focused on trying not to look at Raggart's crotch and finding a change of subject. Something else... Anything... Birds!
"There sure are a lot of birds over there." Straight ahead, just in front of the cliff's face, black birds were hopping and flapping over something still obscured by the topography.
"Indeed there are," said Raggart, sounding much more interested than Julian had anticipated. "Carrion feeders, like the one you pretend to converse with."
"I'm not pretending," said Julian. "We're speaking in Elven."
Raggart snorted. "Of course you are."
"You believe what you want," said Julian. "I've got nothing to prove to a guy who just wants to murder and eat me."
"Fear not, elf. We would not eat you, for fear of contracting your brain disease."
"I don't have a –" Julian stopped. Maybe he could work with this. Maybe he could convince them that they all had brain diseases. "Sorry. I get confused sometimes since my friends and I escaped from the asylum. So... If you're not going to eat us, what are you going to do with us?"
"We'll boil you in a separate cauldron and feed you to a rival tribe under the guise of peace negotiations."
Shit. Nothing gained there. "I was making that stuff up about the asylum."
"You are a persuasive one, elf. But you have already betrayed your contaminated brain."
"My brain isn't contaminated!" said Julian. "I'm just as edible as your two-balled –" Whoa. Close call. Don't say 'son'. Don't say 'son'. "– mom!" Shit.
Raggart glanced at him briefly before something ahead caught his attention.
The base of the cliff was visible now. Those entranced by the singing were headed toward a steep staircase carved into the cliff, slightly to the right of where the body of a large humanoid creature lay on its back between concentric rings of jagged rocks on the ground, being picked apart by birds.
Ravenus, being larger than the other birds, was easy enough to spot, tearing yellow-grey flesh loose from the creature's shoulder. From the empathic link they shared, Julian sensed his familiar was in a state of gluttonous ecstasy. That made it even worse.
Julian ran toward the corpse. "Ravenus! Get away from there! Ravenus!" He waved his arms and screamed to shoo the other birds away. "Scram! Go on, get out of here!"
The birds ignored him until he got pretty close, at which point they exploded away in every direction, leaving only Ravenus behind.
"Ravenus!" Julian said again.
The bird's head jerked to attention. He turned around and looked up at Julian. "Forgive me, master. I suppose I got carried away."
"Get off of him. You know I don't like you to do this while I'm around."
Julian glanced over at his friends. They weren't moving particularly fast, but he didn't want to leave their side for long. If there was any information to be gathered here, he'd have to do it quickly. He looked down at the body.
It was bigger than a man's, with a disproportionately large head and arms longer than its legs. It had pointed ears, and an underbite big enough to accommodate the massive teeth of its lower jaw, jutting upward like a spiked fence around his upper lip.
"What is that?" Julian muttered.
"An ogre," said Raggart, who Julian hadn't realized had followed him. "Not dead long. Meat is still good."
The rough, hairy skin was covered in beak and talon marks. The eyes were missing, which came as no surprise to Julian. That was always the first thing Ravenus went for. More surprising was the missing genitalia.
"Did you eat his junk?" Julian asked Ravenus.
"I beg your pardon, sir."
"The things we mammalian guys have between our legs." Julian gestured around his crotch area. "God knows you've seen Tim's enough times."
"The little worm and berries, you mean?"
"Um... yeah. I suppose so."
"No, sir. Those were missing by the time I arrived."
"Ravenus says he didn't eat the dick."
"I should think not," said Raggart. "Your bird is large indeed, but an ogre penis is enough to satisfy a full-grown bugbear."
"Is that right?" It was both a blessing and a tragedy that Cooper wasn't around to ask him how many ogre penises Raggart had been satisfied by.
"Besides, the wound is too even. This was the work of a sharp blade." Raggart stared down at the blade of his father's dagger.
Julian looked over at his friends. They were waiting their turn as Horrig and Flargarf climbed up the first tier of the staircase. He didn't have long if he was going to keep up with them. "Okay. That's some good CSI stuff you've got going on there. What else can you see? How do you think he died?"
Raggart gave a satisfied grunt and a nod. Of course. He didn't want a buddy. He longed for respect, and deference to his Wisdom.
"The removal of the genitals, and the circular pattern of stones suggest some sort of religious sacrifice," said Raggart. "But I am not learned in such practices."
Julian stepped back and took a wider view of the pattern of concentric circles in which the stones were arranged. He let out a weak laugh. "You know what it looks like to me?"
"What's that?"
Oh shit. "I know how he died. We have to keep the others from –"
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..." said a voice from above, growing louder and louder.
"Sir, watch out!" cried Ravenus.
Julian didn't bother to look up. He ran as fast as he could to the outermost circle of rocks.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH–"
*SPLAT.*
Julian turned around to find another ogre lying face-down right where he'd just been standing. If the first ogre had suffered at all before opportunistic birds had taken his few remaining Hit Points, then this one was luckier. His head had landed on one of the larger rocks, obliterating his skull on impact. His 'worm and berries' were also missing.
"This is no religious ceremony," said Julian. "This is a target." He looked up. Three hundred feet in the air, three creatures with bat-like wings hovered over the edge of the cliff. That's where the song was coming from.
"Harpies," said Raggart. "It's just as I feared. Our friends are compelled to seek the source of the song. They will not listen to reason. They outnumber us by too great a margin. If we try to restrain them as they climb, we will all surely fall to our deaths. There is another route up this mountain, but it is much longer. Would that we had a horse, we could –"
"Horse!" said Julian. A strong brown steed appeared before them.
Raggart looked at him. "Mighty sorcerer indeed." He didn't smile, but Julian felt a mutual respect building between them.
Julian opted to hold off on telling him that he'd just spent his last spell for the day... not counting the backup scrolls that Horrig still held in his bag.
When doubling up on a horse, the heavier person gets to sit in the saddle. They are the anchor. Being an elf, this usually meant that Julian was going to be the one with the sore arms and ass.
Raggart rode in the saddle, and Julian wrapped his arms around him from behind.
"Shall I scout ahead, sir?" Ravenus asked as they prepared to depart.
"No," said Julian. "Those things are dangerous, and they can fly. Why don't you go keep an eye on the others? Don't try to interfere. Just watch over them and report back if there's anything you think I need to know."
"Very good, sir."
Julian didn't have a good view of the path they took. He was too preoccupied with hugging a monster who wanted to feed him to his enemies to pay much attention to his surroundings. All he could tell for certain was that they were riding fast, gradually ascending along a gradual clockwise curve, and that bugbear hair was prickly and smelled like fermented garbage.
Some time between forty-five minutes to an hour later, the rhythm of hooves slowed as the pounding of horse ass against his balls grew less and less severe. They must have been close, because the harpy's song was loud and clear, so much so that Julian didn't feel the need to be particularly quiet.
"Are we planning to fight the harpies?" asked Julian.
"Until not one of their wretched hearts still beat." Raggart stopped the horse and dismounted. "I've never tasted harpy before." He licked his lips.
"Do you have a plan of attack?"
"I shall hack away at them until they no longer continue to live."
Julian frowned. "That's nice and uncomplicated."
"These beasts are far too dangerous to try to capture alive."
"That wasn't my primary concern."
Raggart looked at Julian, inviting him to continue.
"I'm more worried that they outnumber us at least three to one, and I'm not much good in a fight."
"I have seen you conjure up a living horse with your sorcery. Surely you can melt their faces off."
Julian wondered briefly if Melt Face Off was actually a spell in the game, then focused his attention on the task of avoiding a suicide mission without having to admit that he was both unarmed and out of spells. "I was thinking more along the lines of a diplomatic approach. Get a lay of the land, so to speak, maybe find a tactical advantage before we dive headlong into stabbing and face-melting."
"Your methods are unconventional, elf. But you have proved yourself both cunning and capable. I shall follow your lead... for now."
"Okay, good. Now here's how I think we should –" Julian heard voices other than the harpy song. It was the other two bugbears.
"Me first!"
"No, me!"
"Shut up! I can't hear the song!"
"You shut up!"
"Okay," said Julian. "We come out non-threateningly, as if we were also entranced by the song."
Raggart nodded.
Julian chanced a peek over the rock he was hiding behind. The mountaintop was wide, flat and rocky, spotted here and there with dried pools of blood. He didn't see any harpies, but he saw where Horrig and Flargarf were scrambling onto the scene. Horrig was up first, and Julian noticed he was pitching a major tent under his hide pants.
"There you are, sir."
Julian ducked back behind his rock, trying to stifle a heart attack. "Ravenus! Keep it down." He looked up at Raggart. "This isn't going to work."
"Why not?"
"They're not going to believe we're entranced if we don't have erections."
"Not a problem," said Raggart. He closed his eyes. "I shall recall the time I deflowered my niece."
Julian grimaced. "That's... um... lovely."
"At the time, it was. But we were caught, and she was deemed unfit for marriage. We ate her."
Raggart's short tale of incest, murder, and cannibalism threw any chance of Julian's ability to conjure up an erection on the spot right out the window. Desperate times. Desperate measures. He looked down at his familiar.
"Ravenus. I need a favor."
"Anything, master!"
"I need you to be my... worm and berries."
Ravenus stood a little straighter, staring at Julian's crotch. "You mean your... junk, sir?"
"Correct."
"I'm flattered, sir. But I don't even know if we're compatible. Physically, I mean."
"What? No! I just need you to perch on my belt and keep still under my serape, providing the illusion that my junk is larger than it actually is."
"Are you attempting to seduce the harpies, sir? Once you get a close look at them, you may have a change of heart."
"Just get in here and hold still until I tell you otherwise." Julian pulled back one side of his serape.
"My my, gentlemen," said a voice that Julian assumed was one of the harpies that wasn't the one singing. "What a strapping bunch of visitors we have here today." Her voice was raspier than the singer's. Maybe it was her grandmother or something. "Do you think we're... pretty?"
Eager responses came from everyone.
"Oh yes!"
"Absolutely!"
"Lady, I've got more blood in my dick than in my head right now."
Julian waved Ravenus forward. "Hurry up!"
Ravenus hopped onto Julian's crotch and gripped his belt with his talons. Julian stood up and covered Ravenus with his serape.
"That's no good. They'll never believe my dick's that big. Here. Go between my legs so that only your head is poking out." Julian reached down and helped Ravenus into position.
"Shall I grip you by the junk, sir?"
"Hell no!" said Julian. "You keep those talons away from my junk. I'll just hold you snug between my thighs." Every part of that sounded wrong.
"But there are more of you than there are of us," said the raspy harpy. "How will we ever choose who gets to mate with us?"
Shit was about to go down. It was time for Julian and Raggart to make their move. Julian looked at Raggart, who was still concentrating, but already had a passable bulge going on. "You about ready?"
Raggart's eyes were shut tight. His fists were clenched. "Don't worry. They'll never find us. The danger is what makes it exciting."
Julian cleared his throat.
Raggart awoke from his memory. "Oh. Yes. Let's go."
Julian spread his arms and looked down at his crotch. "How do I look?"
Raggart also looked at Julian's crotch, but seemed uncomfortable. "Um... great." He must have been pretty deep into that memory, but the awkwardness of the moment confirmed in Julian's mind that Ravenus was doing a satisfactory job of passing for a penis.
"All right," said Julian. "Remember. We're madly, desperately in love with them." He turned around, grabbed his horse's lead rope, and started walking. With Ravenus between his legs, he had to walk like he was holding in a fart.
"What's wrong with your legs?" asked Raggart.
"Don't worry about it."
He shuffled out from the rock and found Tim, Cooper, and the two bugbears standing at attention. Okay Julian. Time to put that Charisma score to the test. "Oh, what sweet, beautiful music is this? I am entranced by the –"
These were truly the most horrifying creatures Julian had ever seen. They offended his eyes in every way imaginable. The singing one's face was completely covered in brown, dry blood, crusted and cracked all the way down her neck to the tops of her sagging, old-lady breasts. Her hair was a tangled mess, also caked with dried blood. Her bat wings were folded back, as she stood on scaly reptilian legs. Around her neck she wore a long necklace which consisted of a thin hempen cord sewn through a collection of dried, shriveled penises of varying lengths and states of decomposition.
The other two were pretty much the same, the main differences being the fresh red blood covering the lower halves of their faces, and the recently-severed giant ogre penises on each of their necklaces.
"My my, Lucinda," said the raspy harpy. "Two more players. We shall have to think of a new game."
Raggart whispered to himself. "The danger is what makes it exciting. The danger is what makes it exciting. The danger is what makes it exciting." He was understandably having difficulty maintaining his erection.
The harpy Julian assumed was named Lucinda clapped her hands together. "Oh fun! I love new games! And have you ever seen an elf so well-endowed? I must have that one for my collection."
Julian's body involuntarily stiffened, including his thighs.
"KWAA!" cried Julian's junk.
Julian cleared his throat. "Excuse me."
"I know a game," said Horrig. "It's a card game called 'Pok'Har'.
The raspy harpy sneered at him. "I was thinking of something more along the lines of clawing all your eyes out and forcing you to blindly fight to the death."
"Yes!" said Cooper. "That sounds fucking awesome!"
The song, which the third harpy had been singing this whole time until it was unnoticeable background noise, came to a sudden halt.
Flargarf and Horrig screamed something in their native Goblin tongue as the two harpies who hadn't been singing screeched and flew backward, just out of everyone's immediate reach.
"Fuck!" cried Cooper.
"Jesus Christ!" shouted Tim. "Couldn't you have at least made good on your promise to claw our eyes out?"
While Julian's eyes were focused on everyone else's erections withering like time-lapse photography of dying flowers, he didn't notice everyone staring at his seemingly still-raging boner... until he did. He relaxed his thighs, and his junk fell to the ground with a muffled grunt.
"Matilda!" snapped the raspy harpy. "Why have you stopped singing?"
Matilda walked toward Horrig like a Jesus lizard. "I want to know more about this 'Pok'Har'. Do you have a deck of cards with you, bugbear?"
"Uh... uh... of course I do," said Horrig. He pulled Julian's deck out of Julian's bag, glancing briefly at Julian to see if he was going to raise any objections.
Julian nodded his encouragement, then glanced over to see if Tim was appreciating the value of his cards. He must have been doing a poor job of containing his smugness, as Tim responded with a jerk-off gesture.
Horrig nervously licked his big lips before turning back to Matilda. "What say we make this interesting?"
Lucinda hovered low over the ground. "How do you mean?"
Horrig swallowed hard. "Every time one of us wins a round, the winner is free to go. Every time one of you wins a hand, you get to choose one of us to do with as you will."
Julian would have used different terms, but Horrig was desperate and perhaps not as gifted a negotiator. He was doing a pretty good job. If Julian tried to step in now, it might stink of conspiracy. Unbeknownst to Horrig, he might be setting up Julian and his friends with a heavy advantage. If they were bright enough to look to him before discarding, he'd be able to tip them off.
The raspy harpy scoffed. "Your terms are too one-sided. You offer us nothing we cannot take for ourselves. Continue your song, Matilda."
Shit. Julian balled his fists and willed himself to resist the enchanting song.
"I want to learn the game, mother!"
The two harpies took to the air, circling around one another, hissing and screeching in some sort of dominance ritual. Finally, they descended and mom gave in to her daughter's wishes.
"Very well," said the mother. "Let me see those cards."
Horrig held out the deck in his trembling hand.
The mother harpy snatched it away and began observing individual cards. "Did a child draw these while being chased by a pack of wolves?"
Everyone's a fucking critic.
"Apologies, ma'am," said Horrig. "I'm no artist. The beauty of these cards cannot hope to match your own."
Well, well. Perhaps ol' Horrig has taken a few ranks in Diplomacy too.
The mother harpy's lips tightened, as if she was trying to mask her satisfaction. "I suppose they are serviceable." She pulled on a chain around her neck until a glass pendant came up from between her breasts.
She held the pendant to one eye, squinted through it at a card, then flipped the card over and squinted at the back. "What's this?"
Shit.
The mother harpy flipped through several more cards, observing the fronts and backs, before finally flinging the entire deck to the ground. "Cheater!"
"What?" said Matilda and Horrig.
"The bugbear takes us for fools! The cards are marked!"
Horrig stood dumbfounded.
Flargarf glared at Julian. "I knew it!"
Julian could feel Raggart's eyes burning a hole in the back of his head. He was glad there was a horse between them.
The mother harpy flapped her wings slowly, descending toward Horrig like an Angel of Death. "We have penalties for those who would deceive us."
Julian heard Tim clear his throat, but didn't give him the satisfaction of looking his way.
"It wasn't me!" cried Horrig. "They belong to the elf! This is his bag!" He threw Julian's bag like it was crawling with spiders. It landed at Julian's feet.
Julian looked down at the bag, then up at the mother harpy, who was waiting for a response to the accusation.
Sorry, Horrig.
"I've never seen this bag or those cards in my life."
The mother harpy looked back at Horrig. "More lies!" She grabbed him by his upper arms, restrained them against his body, and flapped her wings harder. "Time for this bird to leave the nest."
Lucinda and Matilda screeched gleefully as Horrig's urine traced a line past the cliff's edge.
"Filthy cheater!"
"Make him fly, mother!"
Julian started to feel a tug of guilt. If it meant he and his friends survive, he might have been able to just sit back and let it happen. But Horrig's death would just mean one less ally against the harpies, now that a fight was looking all but inevitable.
"Stop!" cried Julian. The harpies all looked at him. "Horrig was telling the truth. I made those cards."
The mother harpy glared at Julian and screeched, but didn't move back to the edge of the cliff. Time to add a little Bluff to the Diplomacy.
"I only ever intended to use them in the event of an emergency. Judge me if you will, but from one parent to another, is a little deception such a bad thing if it means I get to see my daughters again?"
The mother harpy's grimace wavered. "You have daughters?"
No.
"Two beautiful baby girls, just like yours... just like Horrig's." Julian gestured at the harpy's terrified captive. "His youngest is only a few weeks old. She's adorable."
The mother harpy frowned at Horrig, then looked back at Julian. "No one appreciates how hard it is to raise two daughters all by yourself."
"What happened to your... to their father?"
She looked down at her necklace of shriveled dicks. "A human father has nothing to teach a harpy chick. Once I had his seed inside me, I unmanned and ate him."
"Well that's... resourceful?" Come on, Julian. You can do better than that. "We have offended you, but I beg you to show mercy on our baby girls."
"I would never harm a child," said the mother harpy. "What kind of monster do you take me for?"
"Hold on," said Cooper. "I know this one." He pressed his fat lips together for a moment while his tiny half-orc brain went into overdrive. "Medium monstrous humanoid!"
Tim punched Cooper in the hamstring and whispered, "Dude, shut the fuck up!"
Julian was finally beginning to see some humanity through the crusty mask of dried blood on the harpy mother's face, and he knew he'd better start talking before Cooper made her start thinking about murder again. "Don't you think you'd be harming Horrig's children by taking their father from them?"
The mother harpy thought for a moment, then finally sighed. "You have touched my heart, elf. All too often, I teach my girls the arts of seduction, maiming, torturing, and killing. Rarely do I teach them about compassion and mercy. As an example for my daughters, I shall set you and your friends free."
A wave of relief washed over Julian. Finally, he had the courage to look back at Raggart, who gave him a grudging nod.
Horrig was breathing heavily as the mother harpy flew him back toward the cliff's edge, and he wasn't the only one. Someone behind Julian was breathing like they'd just run a marathon in under an hour.
"I..." *pant* "HOLD..." *pant* "THEE!" *pant pant pant*
Julian turned around. "Dave?" He'd completely forgotten that Dave had been missing all this time. He must have had a hard time climbing the mountain with his fat little dwarf legs.
"NOOOOOOOOoooooooooo..."
Julian turned back to the cliff's edge. "Horrig?" But Horrig and the mother harpy were nowhere to be seen. From the fading of Horrig's scream, he had a pretty good idea which way they'd gone.
"Mother!" cried Matilda. Lucinda merely screeched in horror as the both of them dove out of sight after their falling mother.
Julian, Cooper, and Raggart ran toward the cliff's edge to see if there was any chance that the harpy daughters would be able to save their mother and Horrig, but the abrupt end to Horrig's scream told them all they needed to know before they made it that far.
"Dave!" said Tim. "What the hell have you done?"
"What's wrong?" asked Dave. "I used a Hold Person spell. I thought we were in a fight."
"Well we're sure as shit in one now!"
"Yah!" shouted Flargarf. He was sitting on Julian's horse, now looking far less confident than his 'Yah!' had sounded. The horse wasn't going anywhere.
"Yah!" Flargarf shouted again, with more than a hint of desperation in his voice as he kicked at the stubbornly immobile horse's sides.
Raggart shoved Julian aside as he stomped back toward the horse. "You stinking coward! You would leave me here to die with this band of idiots and bird fuckers?"
"It wasn't like that," said Julian. "I needed Ravenus to be my –"
"EEEEELLLLLLLFFFF!" shouted one of the daughter harpies, her voice getting louder as she drew near.
Shit! Dave killed their mom. Why were they blaming Julian? Unless they thought he'd orchestrated the whole thing. Shit!
Julian spotted his bag on the ground next to the horse and made a mad dash for it. As he got close, Flargarf, still flicking the horse's reins and kicking its sides, drew one of his long machetes. His terrified eyes were focused on a point behind Julian.
One of the harpies screeched behind him. She sounded pissed.
Julian scooped up his bag and ran around to the other side of the horse, hoping that Flargarf could keep her busy while he opened up a scroll tube.
He hadn't yet gotten around to labeling his scroll tubes, so he might have to get creative. As he unscrewed the cap, he hoped for a Magic Missile or a Web, or really anything but a Ventriloquism. He unrolled the parchment inside and read the name of the spell.
[ Animate Rope ]
Not Ventriloquism, but almost as useless in a fight.
The harpy howled. Julian looked up from his scroll. Matilda was hovering above Flargarf, bleeding from a fresh cut in her left tit. In a mad rage, she grabbed him by both ears and shoved her nicotine-yellow thumbnails into his eyes.
Julian winced as Flargarf's machete fell out of his hand and onto the blood-spattered ground. He had a terrible, terrible idea. He licked his lips as he looked over the spell, then read the incantation aloud.
"Rope! Grab!"
The horse's lead rope wrapped itself tightly around Matilda's scaly right leg, between calf and talon.
Sorry, horse. "Run!" cried Julian. The horse bolted off so fast that Flargarf would almost certainly have fallen off if Matilda hadn't had such a firm grip on his eye sockets.
Matilda got in a few desperate (but ultimately futile) wing flaps, before she, Flargarf, and Baxter (Julian decided the horse should have a name before he died) sailed off the edge of the cliff together.
Lucinda screeched helplessly as her sister fell to her death, then locked her eyes on Julian.
Cooper, Dave, Tim, and even Raggart took defensive positions in front of Julian.
"Hurry, sorcerer," said Raggart. "Find another spell. The rest of you, defend him." He passed one of his own machetes to Cooper, and his father's dagger to Tim. Dave picked up Flargarf's machete, still soaked in tit-blood, off the ground. There were now four of them, not counting Julian, against one harpy. If she moved in to attack, they stood a pretty good chance.
Julian opened up another scroll tube.
Mage Hand.
Shit. There wasn't much he could think to do with that one. Hopefully, the others could hold her at bay while he found a better—
Lucinda, hovering above them all, began to sing again. Julian felt a flutter in his heart. His Willpower was being tested.
Julian dropped his bag and covered his ears. "It's just a song. It's just a song." But his elven ears were far too sensitive, and the harpy's music saturated the air around him.
"Sir," said Ravenus, looking up at Julian from on the ground. "Are you feeling all right?"
That's a good bird, Ravenus. Keep distracting me. "Yeah, great. You?"
"I'm beginning to feel a bit woozy, sir."
Julian knew what he was talking about. His own blood was beginning to flow out of his head and into his dick. He was losing the battle.
"This is, like, my new favorite song," said Tim.
Damn. She got Tim again.
"It moves my heart," said Dave.
"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard," said Cooper. The long, soft fart that wafted out only seemed to compliment the melody.
"It's beauty is only matched by your own," said Raggart.
Julian could resist no longer. He looked up.
Lucinda was radiant in her nakedness, hovering above them like a winged goddess, her sweet breath caressing her vocal cords like gentle fingers dancing over the strings of a harp.
"I need you," Julian heard himself say, as if in a lucid dream.
Lucinda smiled at him as she slowly descended toward him, still singing her beautiful song.
The others crowded near him, but Lucinda waved them all back. Julian's heart beat harder, knowing she wanted him, and only him.
When she reached the ground, she ran a fingernail down Julian's cheek. It felt like the gentlest thing ever, but at the same time he was aware that she'd drawn blood. He didn't care. He'd give her all the blood he had and more.
Julian inhaled deeply to calm his nerves. "I would be honored if you would take my..."
Lucinda nodded for him to continue.
"... my member, and wear it around your neck so that you may never forget me. I want to bleed until my spirit parts from my body, riding to the next life on the sound of your voice."
Lucinda smiled and held up a small, slightly rusted, hooked knife.
Julian's penis grew even harder. He couldn't wait. "Take my testicles, too. Everything that makes me a man now belongs to you."
"And if you have any use for my cloaca," said Ravenus, "by all means, have at it."
Lucinda gestured for Julian to lift up his robes.
Julian hurried to comply. He couldn't wait for the bite of rusty steel against his junk. "Your song shall transport me between worlds."
"This Justin Bieber bullshit?" said Tim, from behind Lucinda. "Please."
What an odd, roundabout compliment... Why would he...?
A look of sudden confusion showed on Lucinda's face as well.
"I made my Saving Throw, bitch. Sneak Attack!"
Before Julian knew what was happening, Lucinda hit a note that was wildly off-key. Julian dropped to his knees, shutting his eyes and clapping his hands over his ears. Certainly not the caliber of singing a guy would want to lose his dick over.
When Julian opened his eyes again, Lucinda was hideous. But she always had been, even when I... Why did I think she... Was I just about to let her...
Lucinda spun around to rake her claws across Tim's face. She drew some blood, but it didn't look half as bad as the bleeding dagger wound he'd left in her back.
Cooper, Dave, and Raggart were still coming out of their enchantment when Lucinda started flapping her wings again.
Julian knew he wasn't heavy enough to weigh her down, but he couldn't risk letting her escape to start singing again. He lunged at her and wrapped his hands around one of her reptilian chicken legs.
She tore through his sleeve with her free talon, into his forearm. Julian was riding on enough adrenaline such that the pain didn't yet register, but he could see the blood soaking through his shirt. He wouldn't be able to withstand many of those before letting go.
Holding firm with his good arm, he grabbed at her other ankle with his injured arm. This kept him safe from her talons, but it did little to improve his lack of contact with the ground.
Tim made an impressive jump to grab at Julian's foot, but came up short, swiping the air just below him.
"I'm coming for you, sir!" said Ravenus, rocketing in a trajectory that would intersect with Lucinda's face.
"No, Ravenus!" said Julian. "Back off. She's too dangerous for you to handle. I've got this." With little regard for how Ravenus might take it, he then shouted, "Cooper!"
Cooper shook his big, meaty head and looked from side to side.
"Up here!"
Cooper looked up. "Julian?"
It didn't matter. As high as they'd flown, Cooper appeared about as big as Tim. Julian was on his own.
He wished he hadn't blown through all his spells already. His bag, with all of his backup scrolls, was barely visible from this high up.
Hold on... He hadn't blown through all his spells. Only the first-level ones. Were there any 0-level spells that would be of any use? The damage-inflicting spells wouldn't inflict enough damage to be worth it. What did that leave?
Read Magic. No.
Detect Magic. No.
Dancing Lights. No.
Ghost Sound. No.
Touch of Fatigue. No... Wait a minute... Yes. Hell yes!
"Touch of Fatigue!"
A trickle of magic flowed out of Julian's hands into Lucinda's legs. She started to screech an objection, but it quickly morphed into a yawn. Her wing flaps became more labored, and they began to descend.
When they were low enough so that Julian could let go, he held on even tighter. Her scaly legs were getting slippery with sweat, but he couldn't risk letting her go. Fortunately, she was panting too hard to be able to sing.
Finally, they were low enough for Cooper to grab Julian by the leg and pull them down to the ground.
When Cooper grabbed Lucinda by the throat, Julian let go of her legs.
She weakly attempted to scratch and claw at Cooper, but his outstretched arm was longer than hers were.
"What should I do with her?" asked Cooper.
"Kill her!" said Tim, albeit from a safe distance.
Cooper frowned.
Dave seemed to sense Cooper's moral quandary. "At least punch her unconscious so we can tie her up."
"But she's a girl."
"Dude, she was going to cut your dick off!"
"It doesn't feel right to punch a girl in the face."
The face in question was turning blue through its brown, crusty exterior as both of Lucinda's hands were trying in vain to pry her neck loose from Cooper's grip.
"You're strangling her to death right now," said Dave. "I don't know what your own code of chivalry says, but I can't see how straight up murder is preferable to just knocking the bitch out.
Cooper looked to Julian. Julian nodded.
"Okay." Cooper punched Lucinda in the face until her arms went limp.
"It's just subdual damage," said Dave. "She'll get those Hit Points back when she wakes up."
"We should stuff her mouth with something," said Tim. "Just in case she wakes up and starts singing before we're far enough away. Cooper, tear me off a piece of your loincloth."
"Which piece?"
"The piece with the most shit caked into it."
Cooper ripped off a piece of loincloth which had been covering his ass, leaving one cheek exposed to the elements. The lesion-marred fur suggested that whatever animal it had come from was only slightly better off in life than it was now in death, covered in half-orc shit.
Tim pulled his shirtsleeves up over his hands before stuffing the rolled up ball of hide into the harpy's mouth. When it was in as deep as he could get it, he pulled a rope out of Julian's bag and tied her arms behind her around a thick tree.
"Are you quite finished with your shameful display of compassion?" asked Raggart.
Tim shrugged. "Pretty much. Now, are we anywhere near the coast, or was that whole story bullshit?"
"Hand over my father's dagger, halfling."
"Ha ha," said Tim. "How about no."
"Come on," said Julian. "It belonged to his father."
"Fuck his father. Those assholes probably ate the old bastard anyway."
"It is our custom," said Raggart. "It matters not. I shall take back my father's dagger once I have destroyed you all." He held up his long machete. "Prepare to die."
Julian backed up. "Hold on, man. You can't be serious. After all we've just been through?"
"I must avenge my fallen comrades, murdered by your sorcery."
"We were only defending ourselves," said Julian. "Be reasonable about this. We outnumber you four to one. Surely we've all seen enough death for one day."
"You won't talk your way out of this one, elf. Today is the day you die."
"Fuck this," said Tim. "Dave?"
Dave nodded. "I hold thee."
Raggart froze as still as a statue, his eyes boiling with impotent rage. Cooper started dragging his body toward another tree.
"No," said Julian. "We should tie them to each other."
"Why?" asked Dave.
"If we just tie them both to trees, the first one to get free will just murder the other one."
Tim shrugged. "And we should give a fuck because..."
"If they're tied to one another, they'll have to work as a team to get free. Maybe through working together, they'll earn each other's respect, and go on to form a lasting friendship."
Dave snorted. "You can't possibly still be this naive. They'll start beating the shit out of each other as soon as they get a free hand."
"Then it'll be as fair a fight as we can grant each of them. Let's get the hell out of here." |
4d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | The Unwashed Asses | (Original Publication Date: April 13, 2016)
Cooper's asshole itched something fierce. It was too deep an itch to scratch through the loincloth. He had to get his claws right up in there to properly meet the demand, but he couldn't do that while Dave was walking behind him. And he couldn't walk slower than Dave without everyone wondering what was wrong with him. There was only one option.
"Holy shit!" shouted Cooper, doing his best to look amazed as he peered ahead of the group into the forest. "It's El Dorito!" With that, he bolted forward as fast as his massive half-orc legs would carry him.
"Cooper, wait!" cried Tim.
"El Dorito?" asked Julian.
Neither of them would be able to keep up with Cooper's Base Movement Speed of 40, or even more due to him running down the side of a hill.
Cooper pounded the forest floor, ducking under branches and weaving around tree trunks until he thought he had enough of a lead to get a good scratch in, and maybe a couple soothing bonus scratches. He looked back to see if anyone was tailing him. The coast was clear. Just to be safe, he'd put a little more distance between himself and—
"Son of a bitch!" The pain in Cooper's right ear pulsed in his head as he lay on the ground.
He looked up at a pine branch hanging just about ear-height, missing a small scrap of bark and stained with a bit of dark red blood. His blood. "Fuck you, tree."
"Cooper?" Julian called out. "Are you okay?" He was still a pretty good distance away, but he must have heard Cooper swearing with his freakishly long elf ears.
As hard as his head was throbbing, his asshole itched even worse. Now was the time.
He stood up and squatted for optimal reach, lifted the back of his loincloth with his left hand, and plunged the clawed fingers of his right hand into his hole like a sarlacc toothbrush.
The relief was instant and glorious.
"Unnnnggggg," Cooper moaned. "Sooo worth it."
He blissfully scratched his ass until it was causing more pain than relief. Removing his hand, he found he was clutching a fistful of his own shit. When the hell had he last eaten corn?
"Shit, that's disgusting." That last fart had been a wet one, but he didn't think he'd actually—
A bird cawed loudly behind him.
Cooper turned around quickly, but kept his shit-filled hand behind his back. Ravenus was sitting on the tree branch that had assaulted him.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" said Cooper, despite knowing that the bird couldn't understand him. It didn't matter. He already knew the answer to the question. Julian had sent Ravenus after him.
Ravenus lifted his wings and squawked incomprehensibly.
"What's that?" said Cooper. "You don't understand me? Well maybe you'll understand this." He flung his handful of shit in Ravenus's direction, catching him squarely in the chest and face.
Ravenus fell off the branch and writhed on the ground, trying to flap away the greenish-brown paste gluing his feathers together.
"Oh shit, man. I'm sorry," said Cooper. "I didn't expect it to actually hit you that... directly."
"Ravenus!" Julian called out. He was closer now. "What's wrong?"
Fuck! Julian had that goddamn empathic link with Ravenus. He must have sensed the bird's reaction to suddenly being covered in half-orc shit.
Cooper looked down at the shit on his hand. He had to get rid of the evidence. He wrapped his hand around the smooth grey trunk of a young tree and rubbed up and down vigorously.
"Here they are," said Tim, jogging out from behind some undergrowth. "Cooper, are you jerking off that tree?"
The choice between making up a plausible lie and accepting the one that was just handed to him was no choice at all.
"Um... yes."
Tim closed his eyes and put his fingertips to his temples. "Why?"
Shit. Cooper hadn't anticipated this thorough an interrogation. Think fast. "You ever hear of a little place called Canada? This is how they make maple syrup."
"Ravenus!" cried Julian, kneeling over his bird, but stopping short of touching him. "What happened to you?"
Ravenus squawked and cawed.
"Don't listen to him," said Cooper. "He's a goddamn liar!"
Julian turned back to look at Cooper. "All he said was that he spotted a pool of clean water on his way here that he could wash himself off in."
Shit. No turning back now. "And I'm telling you that's a load of horseshit."
Julian ignored him, scraping some of the bigger gobs of shit off Ravenus's feathers with a twig.
Tim frowned at the greenish-brown section of tree trunk, then up at Cooper. "Maybe a bath isn't such a bad idea."
The little fucker must be using his Sense Motive skill. He could see right through the fortress of deceit Cooper had constructed around himself.
Cooper frowned. "You can't wash away a Charisma score of 4."
"Well maybe you could just wash your ass."
"You guys do what you want," said Julian. "But Ravenus needs a bath." He looked down at his bird. "Can you lead us to the pool?"
Ravenus whistled and chirped.
Julian stepped back and held one side of his serape up over his face Dracula-style. "He says we should shield ourselves. When he starts flapping, the shit will probably spray in every direction.
Tim took a defensive position behind Cooper. Cooper didn't even bother shielding himself, except to close his eyes, when Ravenus started flapping.
The bird wasn't wrong. Cooper felt the splatter of hundreds of tiny shit-gobs pelting him as Ravenus attempted to take flight.
"Hey guys. I'm here," said Dave, huffing and puffing like he'd just outrun a pack of wolves. "Where are the Dorit– Oh shit! What the fuck is – Oh God, stop already! Ugh, it's in my mouth!"
Seeing that was worth risking a little shit in the eyes. Cooper opened his eyes.
Dave had entered the clearing right next to where Ravenus was flapping. He looked like he'd just been standing next to a shit-grenade. His beard and leopard-furred forearm were caked in it. Cooper didn't know that much shit could fit in his hand.
Julian lowered his serape and pointed a thumb behind his shoulder. "Ravenus went that way."
Cooper led the way, ripping through vines, brambles, and small branches with the force of his girth, clearing a path for the others.
About ten minutes later, they came upon Ravenus, splashing in the edge of a crystal clear pool of water. His feathers were shiny black, with no trace of half-orc shit. There wasn't even a floating circle of filth around him.
"This is lovely," said Julian, pulling his serape up over his head.
"A little too lovely if you ask me," said Dave. "It doesn't really fit with the tone of this dreary forest."
Tim jumped in to where the water came up to his knees. Somehow, he'd managed to get completely undressed in the time it took Dave to bitch about how lovely the water was.
Naked but for his hip flask, Tim dropped to his bare ass. The pristine surface of the water barely rippled, and did nothing to hide his tiny halfling dick.
He took a swig from his flask. "Guys, you need to get in here. It's fucking heated. And the ground feels like I'm walking on baby asses." He squinted downward. "I can almost see through it."
Julian kept his pants on as he stepped into the water. When he got up to mid-shin, he sighed in a way that sounded like what Cooper finally being able to scratch his ass had felt like.
After staring thoughtfully at his feet for a moment, Julian dipped one hand into the water, then pulled it back out. "Look at this," he said, holding his hands side by side. "I didn't even realize how filthy I was."
The hand he had dipped in the water was pale white, making the rest of him look like a darker race.
Tim leaned back, submerging himself completely underwater, except for the hand holding his flask. When he resurfaced, he looked like a freshly-scrubbed, hairy-chested toddler wearing a brown glove.
"This isn't natural," said Dave. "We're in a forest. The water shouldn't be that clean. There should be bears and wolves pissing in it all the time."
"It must have some kind of magical cleansing properties or something," said Julian.
"I'm pissing in it right now," said Tim, staring a his crotch. He looked up and shrugged. "You can't even tell."
Julian grabbed Ravenus and waded to the opposite side of the pool.
Dave shook his head. "You're not really selling me on the idea as well as you think you might be."
Tim sucked down some more stonepiss from his flask. "I don't give a fuck if you come in here or not. You can stay covered in Cooper's shit for the rest of your life for all I care. Why don't you go give him a good salad-toss right now?"
"Come on, man," said Julian. "I don't need that image in my head."
Dave started to unbuckle his armor. "Fine. I'll come in."
"I honestly wasn't trying to convince you," said Tim. "Whoa! Hold on." He was now looking at Cooper.
Cooper stopped pulling down his loincloth. "What?"
"What are you doing?"
Cooper considered that there might be more to the question than the very very obvious, but he was in no mood for riddles. "I'm getting undressed."
"Well could you maybe... not?"
"Why the fuck not?" asked Cooper. "Nobody objected to you flapping your little wang all over the place."
Tim frowned as though what he said next wouldn't be well-received. "I meant, could you not get in the pool."
"It was your fucking idea, shithead! You told me I should wash my ass."
"I mean, just not yet." Tim took a swig from his flask. "Look, Coop. Julian's probably right about the magical cleansing properties of this pool. But we don't know how strong that magic is. Your shit is some pretty powerful... well... shit. If it's strong enough to break the spell or whatever, then that's no good for anyone."
"What about Dave? He's covered in the same shit I am."
"Dave has a thin spattering. You're coated in, like, a half-inch layer from head to toe, probably thicker around the ass and thigh areas. All I'm saying is, let the rest of us bathe first, then you get the whole pool to yourself. Doesn't that sound nice?"
Cooper folded his arms and sat down hard on a fallen tree. "I hope a fish bites your tiny dick off."
Dave, now completely naked, waddled his fat, wrinkly dwarven ass into the pool. "Oh man, you guys were right. This is amazing."
He swam out to the middle of the pool, his head and ass moving in unison above the surface of the water like three pasty and/or hairy islands. When he stood, he was up to his neck in water. He gargled the mouthful that he'd taken in, then spit it out.
"I've never tasted water so sweet. It's like liquid flower petals."
"You realize, of course," said Julian, "that this pool is contaminated with our collective filth."
"And I pissed in it," added Tim.
Dave sucked up some more water, swished it around in his mouth, and spit it out again. "It's still a lot less concentrated than the actual shit that was in my mouth."
Cooper sat angrily thinking about how everyone was complaining about the tiny bit of filth in their clear spring water while he was staring at a puddle of his own urine pool around his feet. He had been weighing the pros and cons of taking a big steamy leak in the pool when his bladder suddenly took that option off the table.
"Whoa!" said Dave. "What the hell is this?"
Cooper looked up. The water at the center of the pool was bubbling, but way too much for it to be a fart that Dave was trying to make an excuse for.
"Sweet!" said Tim. "Somebody turned on the jets."
Julian frowned. "This isn't actually a Jacuzzi. We should get out of here."
As Cooper observed, the water became murkier. He noticed that he could no longer see anyone's junk.
"It's getting thicker!" cried Dave. "Wait... what's going on?" His body was beginning to rotate. As he tried to freestyle swim his way out of the center of the pool, he only managed to throw back a blob of translucent sludge at Tim, who was now revolving slowly around Dave.
"What the fuck is going on?" asked Cooper. The water had become the consistency of glue, and was beginning to funnel in the center.
"How the hell should we know?" asked Tim. "Help us!"
"We're whirlpooling!" said Julian. With what looked like a massive amount of effort, he lifted his arms out of the swirling liquid, grabbed Ravenus, cocked him back over his head, and threw him at Cooper, hitting him square in the face.
It felt like a big ball of Jell-O when it hit him, but re-liquefied upon impact, running down his face and chest like normal water. With the tip of his tongue, he sampled a bit that had spattered onto his upper lip. No mistaking the taste either. It was water all right. He didn't taste anything like flower petals, or whatever bullshit Dave had said. In fact, it tasted a little bit dirty, with just a hint of piss.
"Cooper!" shouted Tim. "What the fuck are you doing?"
Fuck!
"I don't know. What should I do?" They were swirling around faster now.
"Noooo!" cried Dave, his head barely above the surface. "I can't braaghhblaagglpppt!"
Cooper wouldn't be able to reach any of them without getting in. But as soon as he stepped forward, Tim shouted at him again.
"No! Don't come in!"
"Seriously, dude?" said Cooper. "Now you're just being an asshole."
"There's a rope in my bag. Throw it to me."
Cooper nodded. "Good call." He grabbed Tim's bag and turned back to the pool. "Ready? Catch!"
"What? No!"
Cooper hurled the bag at Tim. His failure to account for the motion of the whirlpool landed the bag out of both Tim and Julian's reach. Dave had completely disappeared under the surface.
"You fucking moron!" said Tim. "I meant one end of the rope. Not the whole goddamn bag!"
"I'm sorry!" said Cooper. "You should have been more specific."
"Fuck yuhggbgliglub..." Tim's head disappeared under the surface, leaving only his right hand raised, middle finger extended, orbiting the center of the pool at an increasingly high speed.
The whirlpool coned deeper downward into the earth.
"Cooper!" said Julian as he spiraled down into the center. "Take care of Ravenus!"
Ravenus screeched as Julian's head submerged.
"What? Your fucking bird? I don't even... Fuck this!" Cooper raced toward the swirling vortex and dove straight for the center. While he was in midair, the translucent sludge instantaneously changed back into a clear, still pool. He bellyflopped on the surface, but it didn't even sting. The water was warm and soothing, almost to the point of making him forget that his friends had all just drowned.
He shook off the tranquility of the pool when he saw Ravenus waddling toward it.
"Stop! It's too dangerous. Julian told me to take care of you. If I'm just following him to his death, I can at least grant his dying request."
Ravenus paused for a moment, then started toward the pool again. Of course. The stupid bird didn't understand English. He only knew that bullshit they spoke in England. Maybe pantomiming would work.
Cooper put out his palm toward Ravenus. "Stop!" Ravenus stopped.
Okay. Now they were getting somewhere.
Cooper pinched the tips of his ears and pulled them upward. "Julian." He dragged a thumb across his neck. "Dead." He shrugged. "Maybe."
Ravenus shook his head.
"How the fuck do you know?" Cooper thought about how he could best convey that question best through pantomime. It came to him in a flash of brilliance. He shrugged. "How..." He raised his middle finger at Ravenus. "... the FUCK do YOU..." He pointed at his own head. "...know?" Perhaps he was diluting the meaning of a shrug, but it should have been clear in context.
Ravenus stubbornly continued waddling toward him.
"Goddammit, Ravenus! Don't you understand sign language? I said FUCK OFF!" Cooper cocked back his arm, his palm halfway submerged in the water, and prepared to send a tsunami of a splash at the bird. When he shoved his hand forward, however, the water barely rippled around it.
"What the fuck?" This was not how water was supposed to behave. Of course, it also wasn't supposed to coalesce into slime and swallow his friends. So maybe, in a big picture sort of way, the splash thing wasn't so weird.
It didn't matter. If Julian could throw Ravenus out of the pool, Cooper could launch that feathered shitball into the stratosphere.
He started wading toward the bird. Each step was more laborious than the last. Ravenus was veering to the left like he was out of alignment, or like one of them was drunk.
Ravenus hopped into the water, which Cooper now noticed was beginning to thicken. The bird wasn't veering. He was. Now both of them were swirling in a vat of lube, orbiting the center which was funneling downward again.
Cooper gave up on trying to save Ravenus. If the bird wanted to die with him, so be it. He relaxed and let himself float like a fibrous turd in a bus station toilet. When the rotations became faster and close enough to the center, he took a deep breath.
A few seconds after the thick liquid engulfed him completely, Cooper felt the sensation of falling through air. His eyes were glued together with slime, but he was able to open his mouth to take one more breath before he bellyflopped again. This time it stung like water was supposed to sting.
Underwater, he rubbed the slime out of his eyes. When he opened them, some kind of scaly green fish-man was swimming right at him. He barely had time to scream out a torrent of bubbles and punch the fucker in its slimy face.
A mixture of snot and blood squirted out of the creature's nostrils and hung suspended in the water like astronaut puke.
The fish-man covered his face with webbed hands. Cooper started to swim forward to ride the advantage he'd just created, but more webbed hands grabbed his arms and legs from behind.
Cooper was a strong swimmer. Because Swim was one of the few Strength-based skills in the game, he'd dumped as many skill points into it as he could. But in spite of that, his efforts to struggle free were in vain. These slimy assholes were strong as fuck, and made for the water. Even with his Barbarian Rage, he didn't think he'd be able to break free. He would wait and see if they tried to drown him before testing that theory.
Fortunately, the fish-men dragged him up toward the surface.
As Cooper sucked in his fill of stagnant subterranean air, the fish-men let go of his limbs and surfaced around him. The message was clear. He wasn't going anywhere.
Also clear were these things' horrible faces. Through the haze of murky water, the dude Cooper had punched looked like your run-of-the-mill fish-man monster. But in the sharp clarity of viewing them in open air, and the dim light shining through the watery anus in the ceiling, the mucus coating that Cooper had felt on his fist glimmered on their deformed fish faces. They looked like burn victims whose skin was overcompensating. The one he had punched was identifiable by the two streams of blood still running from its nostrils to its big fish lips.
"Hey, um... Swamp Thing. Sorry about that. You startled me. No hard feelings?"
The fish-man responded in a language that sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher.
"I don't know what you're –" Something like a giant wet turd landed on Cooper's head. "What the fuck?"
The fish-men laughed while Cooper wiped the slimy mass off his head. In the water before him, a slime-encapsulated Ravenus writhed and flapped while the gelatinous coating dissolved.
"Oh, hey Ravenus," said Cooper. "What's up?"
Having shed most of the slime, Ravenus looked around at their captors, then flapped and squawked more vigorously.
After the fish-men exchanged a few words in their nasally fish language, the one Cooper had punched licked his big fish lips while gawking at Ravenus with hungry eyes.
Cooper had just enough time to grab Ravenus and throw him up in the air before the fish-man caught him. "Fly, Ravenus! Find Jul–"
*FWUMP!*
Cooper's face felt like it had been hit by a flying log covered in snot. "Mother fucker!" Two images of Swamp Thing merged into one as Cooper wiped blood from under his nose. "What the fuck was that for?"
Swamp Thing shouted nonsense while pointing at his own nose.
"Oh, I see how it is. I hit you, so you gotta hit me. That's real fucking mature. Haven't you ever heard of 'Turn the other cheek', asshole?" Cooper felt a familiar tug in his guts. All the stress from worrying about his friends and getting captured by fish monsters, in addition to the strain of treading water for so long, was giving him gas.
As a torrent of relief flowed out of Cooper's ass, the surface of the water erupted with bubbles like it was being carpet bombed.
The fish-men scowled and backed away from him, though not far enough for him to escape.
"Sorry, guys," said Cooper. "I was... um... turning my other cheeks."
Swamp Thing honked out some orders, and two of the other fish-men broke off from the group. They swam toward the edge of the pool where four wooden pails were sitting. They each filled two of the pails and walked off down a wide corridor.
The rest of the group closed in a tighter circle around Cooper. Swamp Thing swam backwards toward the opposite edge of the pool from where the buckets had been, and gestured for Cooper to follow him.
Not having to tread water anymore sounded just fine to Cooper, so he raised no argument. The others followed close behind him.
Outside of the pool, Cooper had a better view of his surroundings. The main chamber was an irregular blob in shape, carved out of layered clay and earth. At the top, of course, there was some kind of pulsating sphincter which fed would-be bathers into the large, rectangular pool below. Tunnels lined the base of the walls. One of the tunnels, the one the two bucket-carrying fish-men retreated into, was significantly larger than all of the others, large enough to drive a bus through. The other tunnels were much smaller, and all seemed to lead downward, unlike the larger tunnel which seemed to stay level with the main chamber. On the whole, the place looked much like what Cooper imagined the inside of an ant colony must look like, except bigger... and with a swimming pool. Maybe a luxury ant colony.
Swamp Thing led Cooper toward one of the smaller tunnels. The fish-men were noticeably less graceful on land than they were in the water. They plodded along with their big webbed feet flopping on the ground, like men trying to walk in swim fins.
The tunnel was only wide enough for them to walk single file. It sloped downward at an angle that might have made a cool water slide, but would likely only rub his ass raw if he tried to slide on it dry. Cooper briefly considered the tactical advantage of walking single file. If he caught Swamp Thing by surprise with a kick in the nuts, sending him tumbling down the tunnel a bit, he would only have to face the other four one at a time. But then Swamp Thing would, in a best-case scenario, only be out of the fight for a couple of rounds, and then return with sore nuts. That dude was a big believer in retaliation. For the sake of his own nuts, he decided to hold off for a while, and use this opportunity to observe and consider alternative strategies.
They walked for a long time down the earthen-walled tunnel. It probably wasn't as far as it seemed, though. These web-footed assholes could swim like motherfuckers, but were at least as slow as Dave on land. Cooper was tempted to punch one just to break up the monotony of their flopping footsteps.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
Eventually they came to a small cell. The entrance was an iron gate held into place by what appeared to be a big stone doughnut. It didn't seem to have much more thought or care put into it than the scraped out walls of the tunnel, but it looked solid enough. Probably the work of a Stone Shape spell. He might be able to dig his way around it, but there was no way to tell how far the stone was embedded in the earth.
Swamp Thing pulled a key off his chest that, along with the thin rope that it hung from around his neck, had been hidden by his constant secretion of mucus. After shaking most of the slime off, he inserted the key into the gate lock, opened the gate barely wide enough for Cooper to slip through, puckered his big fish lips, and looked expectantly at Cooper.
Go in the easy way, or have his fishfucker thugs force him in? No point in getting the shit beat out of him now. Not until he'd come up with a plan. He stepped through the open gate, into an empty cell that was barely big enough for him to lie down in.
As Swamp Thing locked the gate, Cooper noticed that there wasn't even a bucket for him to shit in. They were prepared to house prisoners, but not for any extended length of time. Cooper was proud of himself for coming up with this conclusion, but felt it didn't bode well for him or his friends.
Swamp Thing slipped the key rope back over his head, and it was almost immediately engulfed in mucus again.
Cooper gave the bars a token shake. "What are you going to do with me? What have you done with my friends? Where am I supposed to shit?"
Swamp Thing spit a stream of brownish-green slime-water at Cooper's face. He and the others shared a laugh and started walking back toward the large chamber.
The limit for how much shit he was willing to take from these assholes having been reached, Cooper employed his Barbarian Rage.
"I'm really angry!"
The flopping of the fish-men's feet was drowned out by the rush of blood flowing through Cooper's ears. His vision turned pink as his hands grew larger around the shrinking cell door.
"UnnnnggggggGraah!" The hinges popped in rapid succession, and Cooper found himself standing outside of the cell, door in his hands, face-to-face with a wide-eyed Swamp Thing.
"Wrrraaaahhh!" said Cooper as he shoved the bottom of the door into Swamp Thing's chest, impaling him with two of the iron bars. If the scaly bastard survived being run through with a door, he surely didn't fare so well after Cooper trampled over him, and the door, on his way to confront the rest of them.
The first one was waiting for him, fist cocked, ready to deliver a slime-cannon to Cooper's face. Cooper took a knee and ducked under the blow. He brought his own fist up to meet the fish-man's nutsack. Or was it a fish—woman's nutsack? Because there was no nutsack. His fist was just sort of... in there. Was he fisting a fish-chick? Maybe they had cloacas. Either way, it was awkward.
Keep your head in the game. Don't lose the Rage.
Cooper's opponent grabbed him by both ears and bit him on top of the head. Motherfucker had a lot of teeth in that big mouth.
"Yeeeooooowww!" Cooper screamed as he removed his hand from the fish-person's orifice. Rather than try to rip his head from its grasp outright, he rolled backward. It let go as it fell behind him, but now he was flanked, a situation he had been meaning to avoid.
His violated opponent on the ground for the time being, Cooper focused his attention on the next one in line. It lunged at him, both webbed hands and mouth open. Cooper opened his own hand and palmed the creature in the face. He was packing a lot more slime than he'd expected. It was a mix of green and red and brown, like someone took a dump in the Christmas Jell-O.
The fish-monster reeled back, not so much from the force of Cooper's slap, he expected, but from the horror of what was seeping into its eyes, nostrils, and mouth.
The immediate threat temporarily blinded by... whatever, Cooper turned back to find the creature he'd inadvertently entered was back up on its feet and crouched to spring.
Even in his Rage and with the threat of impending death, Cooper wanted to avoid punching a girl in the face if he could. When it sprang at him, Cooper grabbed it by the throat and hurled it backward.
"Learn how to wipe!"
The creature howled in agony as the top bars of the cage door burst out of its belly and chest. It flapped its webbed appendages until they went limp.
It was time to stop fucking around. His friends were still around here somewhere. Cooper turned around, once again only threatened on one side. His immediate threat was sobbing while trying to scrape the vag-shit out of its eyes.
"FUCK YOU!" shouted Cooper. He kicked it in the gut, sending it flying into the fish-monster behind it.
The last fish-person in line turned tail and ran, it's webbed feet flopping loudly on the dirt floor of the tunnel. In hot pursuit, Cooper trampled the two on the ground, but one of them grabbed his ankle, tripping him. He hit the ground hard, then looked back to see the fish-monster without shit all over its face climbing up his left leg.
Cooper didn't have time for this shit. If he let one of these fuckers get away, they might raise an alarm, calling forth a whole army of watery assholes. With his right leg, he drove his foot down hard, relishing the crunch of face beneath his heel. His left leg was suddenly free of the creature's grasp.
His fears of the creature's escape proved unfounded. These things couldn't run for shit on land. Cooper caught up with the fleeing fish-person just as the opening of the tunnel came into view. He tackled it and punched it in the back of the head until it stopped moving.
With the immediate threat neutralized, Cooper's Barbarian Rage subsided, and his bulging muscles deflated back into flab. He felt for the creature's pulse through the mucus on its neck. Its heart was still beating. He hadn't killed it.
Cooper had two choices. He could kill this thing dead and go look for his friends on his own, or he could keep it alive and beat some answers out of it. The interrogation option felt more ethical. He grabbed the fish-person by the foot and dragged it toward the pool outside of the tunnel.
Barbarian Rage had sapped a lot of his energy, and Cooper was a sweaty exhausted mess by the time he made it to the pool.
"No time to rest," Cooper grumbled to himself. His friends needed him.
Positioning the unconscious fish-monster face down at the edge of the pool, Cooper sat on its back and dunked its face in the water. After a few seconds, he pulled the head up by its slimy hair.
The fish-person's eyes were wide open.
"Ready to talk, asshole?" said Cooper.
"Wha wahh waaa whaa wa," said the fish-monster.
"English, motherfucker!" Cooper shoved the creature's head back down into the water. After counting slowly to ten, he pulled the head back again. "Where the fuck are my friends?"
"Whaa wa waa wha wa!"
"I can't understand your crazy fish language!" Cooper shoved its head underwater again. "One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississ–"
"Cooper!" Tim's voice came from behind him.
Cooper turned around. "Tim?"
Tim was naked and sopping wet. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"I have a prisoner. I was interrogating him."
"It's not going to do you any good," said Tim. "He doesn't speak the Common tongue. And besides that, he's amphibious."
Cooper concentrated for a moment. "He's neither right nor left handed?"
"No, dumbass. That's ambidextrous."
"He's into dudes?"
"Jesus, Cooper." Tim's voice was starting to take on that familiar 'Please punch me in the throat' tone. "He can breathe underwater."
"What?" Cooper pulled the creature's head out of the water again. Its face betrayed less distress than Cooper thought appropriate, considering that he'd lost track of time while he was talking to Tim. "That's cheating!"
"Hey guys," said Julian, emerging from the tunnel adjacent to the one Tim had come from. He had Ravenus with him and, for reasons beyond any Cooper could guess, also a horse. "What's going on?"
"Don't 'What's gong on?' me," said Tim. "Why the hell did you summon a horse down here?"
"This is Gilbert," said Julian. "He kicked open the cell door for me."
Tim nodded. "That was actually pretty resourceful. Well done."
"How did you get out?"
"I picked the lock. As soon as those fishface fuckers started closing in on us, I grabbed my lock picks out of the bag that Cooper was stupid enough to throw at me."
"You're welcome," said Cooper. "How did either one of you two pansies fight your way through the guards?"
Tim and Julian looked at each other, then back at Cooper.
"I didn't," said Tim. "I waited for them to leave."
"Me too," said Julian. "Those things are strong as hell, and we're unarmed. What did you fight them with?"
"The cell door."
Tim looked down at the fish-person pinned under Cooper. "Can you hurry up and kill this one so we can get the hell out of here?"
"I'm not going to kill it. Can't we just tie it up or something?"
"With what? Our dicks?"
"Certainly not yours." The tip of Tim's halfling dick barely poked out from his massive pube nest.
"Fuck you," said Tim.
"Shut up," said Julian.
Tim gave him the finger. "Fuck you too."
"No, seriously. Shut up for a second. I think I hear something." Julian cupped a hand next to one of his ridiculously long elf ears. "Two more," he whispered. "Coming this way from the big tunnel." Silently, he gestured for Cooper to travel counter-clockwise around the pool while he and Tim went the other way, and they'd meet on either side of the tunnel's opening. He was much better at improvisational sign language than Cooper was.
"What about this asshole?" asked Tim, pointing down to Cooper's captive.
Cooper gave it a solid punch in the back of the head. It hadn't been struggling, but the sudden lack of tension in its muscles led Cooper to believe it was genuinely unconscious. He let the head drop back down into the water.
"He'll be okay, right? On account of him being an Albanian?"
Julian squinted at him. "A what?"
"Amphibian," said Tim. "He's fine. Let's go."
Cooper didn't worry about being too quiet. He figured no one could bitch at him as long as he made less noise than Julian's goddamn horse. It was only when they had met on the other side of the pool at their respective sides of the large tunnel's entrance, and everyone stopped moving, that Cooper was finally able to hear the flopping of wet webbed feet against hard-packed earth. This was Julian's plan. Cooper looked to him for further instructions.
Julian pointed at Cooper, then punched the air. He pointed at himself, then threw his hands forward in a gesture which suggested a magical spell way more powerful than any he could perform. He pointed at Tim, then shrugged. Tim responded with a jerking off gesture, equally generous with regard to what he had to work with.
Julian's horse seemed to be picking up on the increasing tension in the air. It pawed its hooves on the ground restlessly and grunted and snorted.
"Okay, Tim," said Julian. "Your job can be keeping Gilbert calm."
"Do I look like the fucking horse whisperer to you? Why don't you just dispel it?"
"That would be wasteful. Now be quiet and stroke his mane. He likes that."
"I'm only three goddamn feet tall. All I could stroke is his dick."
Cooper nodded to himself. It was a solid plan. Surely there was no sight more distracting than a naked midget jerking off a horse. The fish-men would be caught entirely off guard. He would put the first one in a choke hold while Julian – Wait... What the fuck were they doing now?
Julian picked up Tim and placed him on the horse's saddle. When he turned around again, Cooper waved for his attention.
Julian mouthed the word, "What?"
The flopping footsteps were getting closer. Cooper didn't have time to carefully think through a pantomime. He did his best. He started with a shrug, then a jerking off gesture with his left hand, and finally a choke hold with his right arm.
By the look on Julian's face, he guessed his attempt at non-verbal communication had once again failed. He couldn't blame Julian. Now that he considered it, he probably looked like he was trying to give a reach around to an unwilling bear.
Ah well. At least the horse seemed to have calmed down.
Flop. Flop. Flop. The footsteps were very close now.
Julian nodded at Cooper. Cooper nodded back. Julian held up one finger, then two. With the third finger, he jumped in front of the tunnel entrance.
"Magic Miss–" His spell was interrupted by a bucket to the face. Magic sparked and crackled ineffectively from his right hand.
Cooper, only now realizing the significance of Julian's counting, lunged for the fish-person who had bucketed Julian. He was intercepted mid-lunge with a bucket in his own face.
"Son of a bitch, that hurts!" said Cooper. It couldn't have done more than a couple Hit Points' worth of damage to him, but goddamn. What kind of assholes fight exclusively with buckets?
"Waa wa wha wa wa!" said the fish-person who had hit Julian.
Tim whistled. "Hey! Shithead!"
"Wha wa?" said the fish-person, turning around to face Tim just before receiving two hooves to the chest. With a simultaneous squelch and crunch, the creature flew backwards. The bucket in its left hand connected with Cooper's ear.
"Goddammit!" Cooper shouted.
The standing fish-man held his buckets in front of him defensively. "Please! Wait!" he said in a croaky voice.
"Give me that!" said Cooper, ripping one of the buckets out of the creature's webbed hand. He pounded it over the head with the bucket repeatedly as he shouted, "How. Do. You. Fucking. Like. That. Asshole!"
"Cooper!" cried Julian. "Stop!"
Cooper stopped, not because Julian had told him to, but because his bucket was smashed to pieces.
Julian forced himself between Cooper and the cowering fish-person.
"Get out of the way," said Cooper. "He's still got one more bucket. I want to beat the shit out of him some more."
"Didn't you hear him?" asked Julian. "He said 'Please! Wait!'."
"Who gives a shit? You can't call 'Time Out' in the middle of a fight."
"No, you dolt! Think for a minute. He speaks the... What do you call it in the game? The International Language?"
Cooper scratched his head. "Love?"
"The Common Tongue," said Tim. "Good call, Julian." He hopped down from the horse and stood before the creature. It was bleeding more than its bucket wounds should have accounted for, and in places he hadn't even been hit. Its mucus coating was thin to the point of being nonexistent, and the skin underneath was pale and cracked. "Cooper, what the hell did you do to it?"
"I didn't do anything! Well, aside from beat it with a bucket, but –"
"Waaa...teeerr," the fish-person croaked weakly.
"You're thirsty?" asked Cooper.
"My... skin. It's too... dry."
"His skin needs moisture," said Julian. "Like a beached whale. We need to get him to the pool."
"Not so fast," said Tim. "First he can answer some questions. Who are you? And why did you lock us up?"
"We are scum. We obey the master's commands."
Julian pulled Tim and Cooper away from the creature. "This guy's been through a lot. Maybe we should go easy on him."
"He tried to kill me with a bucket!" said Cooper.
"I think you got adequate revenge for that. He's obviously in some kind of abusive Theon Greyjoy Stockholm Syndrome type of relationship with his so-called master. He called himself scum."
Tim rolled his eyes. "That's skum, spelled with a 'k'."
"No it isn't," said Julian. "Where the hell did you go to school?"
"It's a type of creature, dumbass. It's in the Monster Manual."
"Oh." Julian frowned. "Well I still think we should put him in the water. What we're doing here is torture. Aren't we too good of people for that."
Cooper thought of his previous attempt at interrogation. "Maybe not too good for, but also not good at."
"Just pick him up and drop him in the pool before –"
"We're too late," said Tim.
Cooper and Julian looked back. The two skum were sprawled on the ground, their skin as dry and thin as paper. The one who had gotten kicked by the horse was missing its eyes, and Ravenus was perched on the head of the one who had spoken English.
"Ravenus!" said Julian. "Don't you dare!"
Ravenus squawked and flapped his wings.
"You don't know that. He might only be unconscious."
Tim knelt down next to the dead-looking skum and slapped it lightly on the face. "Come on, man. Wake up! If Dave can bring his Hit Points to more than zero, he might be able to... Hey, where the hell is Dave?" He looked up at Cooper and Julian. "Oh shit. Did we forget about Dave?"
Julian looked down at his feet. "I um... thought we were looking for him."
Cooper scratched his ass. "If I'm honest, I forgot about Dave."
"This is no use," said Tim. "Cooper. Pick him up and throw him in the pool."
Cooper bent over and slid his forearms under the skum's neck and knees, picking him up forklift style. The body was cool and surprisingly dry. He walked over to the edge of the pool and launched the body in a somersaulting arc into the middle of the pool, where it landed face down with a moderate splash.
"Jesus, Cooper!" cried Tim. "I didn't mean you should literally throw him. We're trying to see if he's got any life left in him."
"Well I didn't know that. I thought we were just dumping a body."
Tim frowned, looking at the floating skum lying still on top of the water. "From the looks of it, I guess we were."
"Should I do the other one too?" asked Cooper.
"No. Let's go find Dave."
Ravenus cawed excitedly.
Julian sighed. "Fine, whatever. But I'm not going in there to flip the body over for you." He turned away as Ravenus flew toward the floating corpse. "I can't look at this. Should we search all the smaller tunnels first, or start with the big one?"
Tim put his hands behind his head and stretched backwards as he pissed into the pool. "Floppy McBirdfood said something about a master. If there's a Big Bad in this sewer, I'm betting his lair is down the big tunnel."
"But there are dozens of tunnels to search," said Julian. "What if Dave's getting raped by fish monsters the whole time?"
"They're skum."
"I can't bring myself to call them that."
"You just called them fucking rapists!" said Tim, shaking the last drops of pee from his dick.
"I didn't say they were raping him. I said they could be, or even worse."
Cooper picked up pissing in the pool where Tim left off. He watched Ravenus trying to peck a hole through the back of the dead skum's head. "What's worse than getting raped by fish monsters?"
"How about getting murdered and eaten by fish monsters?" Julian's tone was growing impatient.
"I don't know," said Cooper. "Given the choice, I think I'd rather –"
"Fine!" said Julian. "Can we settle on 'differently just as bad?' My point is that Dave could be in serious danger right now, while you guys are wasting time pissing in a pool."
"Or more likely," said Tim, "he's just sitting in a cell like the rest of us were, but lacks the brute strength, brains, or Gordon the Magical Fucking Horse to free himself."
"It's Gilbert."
"Whatever. If we have to go up against a boss monster, I'd rather do it with the healer in the party." Tim looked at Cooper. "What do you think?"
Cooper shrugged. "Those skum are pretty tough in the water, but not so much on land. Hell, if shit gets too thick, we can just outrun them. Out of the water, they're as slow as –" Tim had been making a lot of sense, and Cooper didn't want to lend any more weight to Julian's argument than he'd intended to.
"Cooper?" said Julian. "What were you going to say?" His encouraging tone suggested he knew exactly what Cooper was going to say.
Cooper hung his head. "Dave."
"There you have it," said Julian. "We could take a peek down the big tunnel at minimal risk to ourselves, or we could waste a bunch of time in the little tunnels while Dave is potentially being violated and/or murdered."
"Logically, what you propose sounds like a tremendously stupid idea," said Tim. "So why does it suddenly seem so reasonable to me? Wait a minute... You're using Diplomacy on me again, aren't you?" He clapped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes. "Get the fuck out of my head!"
Julian smiled. "I guess that's that, then. Cooper, would you care to lead the way?"
Cooper picked up Tim and put him back on the horse's saddle.
After about five minutes of walking along the wide earthen corridor, they came to the first of a series of hard-packed steps. Each was about half a foot tall, and four feet deep. They made for an easy, gradual climb.
Ten minutes into Tim's constant bitching about how he couldn't see, Julian raised a more puzzling question.
"How high have we climbed? How are we even still underground at this point?"
"We must be climbing up into that hill Cooper ran down," said Tim. "Do you have any Light spells?"
"I can cast it on a fixed point in space. But if we want it to travel with us, I need to cast it on an inanimate object."
"Cast it on your pants," said Tim.
"I don't want light shining out of my crotch. What if I need to hide?"
Cooper, who could see just fine with his Darkvision, clawed a small chunk of rock out of the dirt wall. "Here."
The passage had apparently grown too dark for even Julian's Low Light Vision; he waved his hand around like a jackass before finally connecting with Cooper's.
"Light," said Julian. The light from the rock was blinding at first, but the spots in his vision slowly faded, mingling with the new light's reflection sparkling on the water just ahead of them.
"This is a dead end?" asked Tim.
"We could swim," suggested Cooper.
"This water could be crawling with skum, and I can see the other side from here. Why didn't you tell us we were at a dead end, so Julian wouldn't have to blow a spell?"
"Why don't you blow me?"
"Take it easy, guys," said Julian. "It's just a zero-level spell. I've got plenty." He stroked his horse's mane. "Take a drink, Gilbert." He held his enchanted chunk of rock out over the water, shining it left, then right. "Doesn't look like there's anything here." He walked back and shone his light back down the tunnel. "From what I could tell, this is the only tunnel leading upward. The rest of them led deeper underground. We can take each tunnel, clockwise one at a time, until we find –"
"JESUS!" cried Tim.
When Cooper looked back, the horse was struggling to stand, its head completely engulfed by a massive three-eyed fish.
Tim jumped off the back of the horse just in time to avoid being grabbed by one of the four tentacles reaching for him from the creature's sides. They struck the horse instead, and it disappeared instantly.
The fish's lamprey-like mouth closed around nothing as it fell, smacking the bottom of its head against the dirt at the side of the pool.
"Gilbert!" cried Julian.
"Who gives a shit about your horse?" said Cooper. "What the fuck is that thing?"
The fish retreated backwards into the water, which had suddenly become thick, opaque, and rancid. Its three eyes peeked above the surface, staring at them.
"You dare bring a false offering to Bal'Horzahg?" Whatever had spoken hadn't done so in the conventional sense. The words had bypassed Cooper's ears and been directly transmitted into his brain somehow.
Had the others heard it?
Tim clapped his hands over his ears. "Get the fuck out of my head!"
Apparently so.
"I think the fish is talking to us," said Julian.
"I am no fish!" said the voice that wasn't really a voice. "I am an aboleth, a denizen of the underworld."
Tim's eyes were tearing up as he coughed. "You're a denizen of a shithole. Seriously, how do you live in that?"
"I was betrayed by my own kind. When we consume a creature, we gain their memories. I know many terrible secrets. The other aboleths feared my growing power and imprisoned me here, where I've wallowed for years in my own waste."
"It didn't look, or smell, like this a minute ago."
"My powers of illusion are strong, and your minds are weak."
"Why didn't they just kill you?" asked Julian.
"The temptation to consume me, inheriting my knowledge, would be too great. But one day my skum shall find an underground river or lake, and I shall escape into the outside world and be free to exact my revenge."
"Is that why they're digging all those tunnels?"
"You are correct, elf."
Well, not technically, since I killed them all.
Bal'Horzahg turned to Cooper. "You did what?"
"Shit. Did I say that out loud?"
Tim and Julian glared at Cooper.
"He can read our minds, asshole," said Tim. "What the fuck were you thinking?"
Cooper frowned. "It's probably obvious now, in context."
"No matter," thought Bal'Horzahg. "You shall make suitable replacements."
"Fuck that," said Tim. "We're getting the fuck out of here." He turned around and started walking.
"Stop!" thought Bal'Horzahg.
Much to Cooper's surprise, Tim did as he was told. He faced the aboleth and got down on his knees. "I serve only you, mighty Bal'Horzahg."
"Shit," said Cooper.
"Very good," thought Bal'Horzahg. "The little one's mind is weak."
"Whoa," said Tim. "I blacked out there for a second. What happened?"
"Once I've turned you all to skum, you shall dig more tunnels until you find me a way out of this pit."
"I've got a better idea," said Julian. "Why don't we go get a wagon, and we can travel overland and drop you off in a lake or something?"
"Outside of water, my skin would dry out and I would either die or be severely weakened. Perhaps I would survive, but my spawn would surely not."
Julian peered past the aboleth. "You've got kids?" He'd found his in for Diplomacy.
"Not yet," thought Bal'Horzahg.
"Oh."
Cooper nodded for Julian to keep that line of question going.
Julian shrugged. "Is there a Mrs. Bal'Horzahg down there with you?"
"We aboleth are hermaphroditic."
"Your blood doesn't clot properly?" asked Cooper.
Julian shot him a quick glare. "That's hemophilia."
Cooper scratched his ass thoughtfully. "He's into kids?"
"Dude!" said Tim. "Shut up!"
"It means we have both male and female sex organs," explained Bal'Horzahg.
Good. Then you can go fuck yourself.
"You shall pay for your insolence!"
"Sorry!" said Cooper, Julian, and Tim simultaneously.
Cooper looked at Tim. "Were you thinking, 'He could go...'"
"Low hanging fruit," said Julian. "It just popped into my head."
"He left himself wide open for it," said Tim. "I couldn't help –"
"SILENCE!" Bal'Horzahg was thinking in his outside voice now. "How dare you insult me! I, who have devoured the king of the merpeople?"
"Oooh," said Julian. "That's very impressive. He must have had some interesting memories."
"Silly elf. You try to win me over with flattery. Are you not aware that your deepest thoughts and motives are as plain to me as this toxic sewage in which I dwell?" Bal'Horzahg raised one of his tentacles out of the dark brown sludge and held it out toward Julian. "Come, touch me and let your transformation begin."
"I willingly obey," said Julian, reaching his hand out and stepping forward.
Cooper wondered if he should interfere, or whether Julian had a trick up his sleeve. "Uh... Julian?"
Julian took another step forward. "I want to be skum."
Cooper looked at Tim, who stood there watching with no sign of emotion, then back at Julian. "Are you sure? Because it kind of seems like it sucks."
As Julian was about to touch the tentacle, Bal'Horzahg began drifting to the right, like he was teasing Julian into stepping into the putrid water.
"Wait... happening to... what..." Bal'Horzahg's thoughts were fragmented and panicky. Cooper couldn't keep up with them. Suddenly, the giant fish plunged beneath the liquid filth. Cooper thought he could see a small whirlpool forming in the middle of it.
"Hey," said Julian. "What happened? Where's Bal'Horzahg?"
Cooper didn't know if it was Julian, Tim, Bal'Horzahg, or all three of them, but somebody had to be fucking with him.
"That asshole is still lingering in his mind," said Tim, digging his finger deep into his ear. "Motherfucker really gets up in there."
Cooper put his hands on Julian's shoulders. "He was about to turn you into skum. Did you want that?"
"I did," said Julian. He rubbed his temples. "Now I've got kind of mixed feelings about it."
"Let's get the fuck out of here."
"No," said Julian. "We should wait and talk it out more with Bal'Horzahg."
"We could do that," said Cooper. "Or..." He punched Julian in the face, threw him over his shoulder, and looked down at Tim.
"Hey, man," said Tim. "I'm cool."
Cooper scooped up Tim and started to run.
"Stop!" said Tim.
"No!" Cooper kept running. "Don't make me punch you too. I don't want to be alone down here."
"I think I saw something back there."
"Was it a harpoon?"
"No."
"Then I don't give a fuck."
Tim squirmed under Cooper's arm. "I spotted a pattern of rocks on the wall. They looked like purposely arranged handholds. It might have been a way out."
Cooper continued bounding down the stairs. "I don't know why that slimy asshole went all Das Boot on us, but if he comes back, and we're all standing around jerking off at some fucking rocks, he's going to dig into our brains and turn us into skum."
"What's the alternative?" asked Tim. "How the hell else are we going to get out of – JESUS CHRIST!"
Cooper stopped at the mouth of the tunnel. A stream of liquid shit had flowed up from one of the lesser tunnels and into the pool enough to darken a good quarter of it, but had since subsided.
Near the wet and chunky brown path, wandering around like a zombie, was some kind of mud-monster. It was dripping and moaning, its short fat arms stretched out in front of it.
"Mwaaaaah! Whaaaaa!" the mud-monster groaned.
Cooper dropped Julian and Tim at his sides.
"Ow," said Tim.
"I'll take care of this." Cooper charged at the creature, mentally reclassifying it as a shit-monster when its smell hit him. "Fuck the demon ass you squirted out of!"
"No, Cooper!" cried Tim. "It's –" Whatever else he said was lost in the crash of Cooper and the shit-monster colliding and splattering into the dirt.
Cooper had no weapons, so he straddled the shit-beast and punched it repeatedly.
"Cooper!" cried his foe, shielding its shitface with its shit-arms. "Stop!"
It knows my name.
Cooper throttled its shit-throat with both hands. "Get the fuck out of my head!"
"Idiot!" said Tim, suddenly on Cooper's back. "That's Dave!"
Cooper stopped slamming the creature's head into the dirt, but kept his hands firmly around its neck. "Bal'Horzahg turned Dave into a shit-monster?"
"He's not a shit-monster," said Tim. "He's just Dave, covered in shit."
Cooper released Dave and stood up. "That's disgusting. What the hell is wrong with you?"
Dave weakly raised his middle shit-finger up at Cooper.
"Honestly, Dave," said Tim. "Where have you been? And why are you covered in shit?"
Dave wiped a thick coating of shit from his face with both hands. He was no less brown, but the non-bearded parts of his face were now recognizable. "I heal me." He groaned and sighed as the magic sorted out his bumps and bruises. "They locked me in a cell."
"We guessed that much," said Tim. "They locked us all in cells. The rest of us escaped pretty easily."
"I escaped too, but it wasn't easy."
"What the fuck did you do?" asked Cooper. "Crawl through a whale's asshole?"
"I couldn't open the gate, so I Shawshanked my way through the wall. I started tunneling upward, hoping to reach the surface. Instead, I hit the bottom of some sort of shit reservoir. When it broke, the pressure blasted me right through the gate. It was up to my waist in no time. It rose up the tunnel faster than I could climb. I honestly thought I was going to drown in liquid shit." He looked at the mouth of the tunnel he'd come from. "I guess it stopped."
"Bal'Horzahg," said Tim. "He plugged the hole."
"You mean he's actually fucking himself?" asked Cooper.
Dave squinted at him. "What?"
"No," said Tim. "He'll die without moisture. He swam down to plug the hole that Dave made."
"So he's plugging Dave's hole?"
"Technically, I... Shut up, Cooper."
"How does it feel, Dave?"
"Shut up, Cooper," said Dave. "Who the hell is Bal'Horzahg?"
"He's an aboleth."
The whites of Dave's eyes widened against his shit-caked skin. "You guys met an aboleth? How are you still alive?"
Cooper snorted. "You opened your hole in the nick of time."
Tim glared up at Cooper. "Would you knock that shit off?" He looked back at Dave. "But yeah, that's true. You saved us, buddy. We owe you." Tim was speaking conspicuously less prickish than he normally did.
Dave shrugged. "It was my pleasure."
"Good," said Tim. "Because we need you to do it again."
"What?"
Tim licked his lips. "Listen, Dave. There's a pattern of discolored rocks on the wall right near the aboleth's pool. They look like handholds. It's my guess that was how the skum went in and out when the need arose."
"And?"
"And we need somebody to go up there and lower a rope through the pool trap while the aboleth is distracted."
"Why me?"
"Because it knows that's our only hope of escape," said Julian, rubbing his swollen black eye. "It'll die if it doesn't transform at least one of us into its slave, so that we can repair the leak and bring it food."
"What happened to you?" asked Dave.
"Cooper punched me in the face."
Dave glared at Cooper. "Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"I –"
"Hang on," Dave continued. "I still don't see why I'm the one who has to go. Tim's sneakier. Cooper's faster and a better climber."
"But you're more expendable," said Cooper.
"Screw you guys. I'm not –"
"You're wiser," said Tim.
Dave rolled his eyes and scoffed. "Leave the flattery to Julian. You suck at it."
"No flattery," said Tim. "Just game mechanics. Your Willpower saving throw is modified by your Wisdom bonus. Julian and I failed, and Cooper almost certainly would have as well. You're the only one of us who stands a chance at resisting Bal'Horzahg's telepathic commands."
Dave looked from Tim to Cooper, then Julian, who both nodded their agreement with Tim's assessment. "Goddammit. Where's your rope."
"I don't know," said Tim. "They took all my shit."
Dave rubbed his shitty hands together. "Well I guess we'd better go and find that first. Without a rope, the plan kind of falls apart, right?"
"I've got a rope in my bag you can use," said Julian. "Right outside the pool trap."
Dave lowered his head. "Goddammit." He raised a finger to Julian. "Swap me a horse for a heal?"
Julian backed away from Dave's shit-covered finger. "I'll be okay. Horse is on the house." He pointed to the ground next to Dave. "Horse!" A horse appeared, a slightly lighter shade of brown than what Dave was covered in.
Cooper helped Dave's fat, naked, shit-slathered ass onto the horse, in spite of its protesting whinnies.
"Fuck you, horse," said Dave. "This is no picnic for me either."
"Good luck, Dave," said Tim.
"Godspeed," said Julian.
"Follow the plot," said Cooper. "Do his taxes and steal his shoes."
Dave scooped some shit out of his beard and flung it at Cooper. "I don't know if you're being stupid or just an asshole, but I –"
"Go horse!" said Julian.
The horse jolted forward. Dave only barely managed to hang on. Before long, they were both out of sight. A few more minutes and they couldn't even hear the horse's hooves, except for Julian, probably.
Cooper, Tim, and Julian sat on the edge of the newly murky pool, idly watching Ravenus, who was still pecking away diligently into the back of the dead skum's head.
"JESUS CHRIST!" Dave's voice finally echoed down the tunnel. As he said it, a torrent of shit-water gushed out from the tunnel in which Dave had been imprisoned and flowed into the center pool.
Julian started to stand up, but Tim caught him.
"We can't help him," said Tim. "This is pass or fail. If he fails, he'll be transformed before we ever get there. If he passes, we're only needlessly risking our own lives by following."
Thirty minutes or more passed. The shit river stopped flowing again, and Ravenus was making good progress on the skum corpse.
"Do you think this is a good sign or a bad sign?" asked Julian.
"Hard to say," said Cooper. "Dave's slow as shit. Whether he's coming back to rescue us or kill us, he'd take a while."
"He might not be doing either," said Tim. "Bal'Horzahg might just be biding his time, keeping Dave there in the hopes that we get desperate enough to investigate."
Julian frowned. "So the collective evidence is pointing toward 'Bad Sign'."
"Not necessarily," said Tim. "It's also possible that Dave is just –"
SLURP. BLURP. The sound came from the ceiling.
"The pool trap!" said Julian. "It's opening!"
The gelatinous circle in the ceiling rippled as the sphincter-like opening at the center puckered, then slowly opened, squeezing out Dave like a bearded newborn babe. His body was pasty white again, having been cleansed of shit. It glistened with a fresh coating of lube. With a wet, slurpy release, he broke free from the ceiling and plummeted toward the water below, stopping just short of crashing into Ravenus.
"Ow!" cried Dave. "Son of a bitch, that hurts!"
One end of a rope was tied around his ankle.
"What took you so goddamn long?" asked Cooper.
"Fuck you!" said Dave.
"And why didn't you just throw the rope in?" asked Tim.
"Do you honestly think I didn't try that? I threw the fucking rope in. It didn't work. I tied it to a log. Still didn't work. The trap wouldn't spring until I was in it. I thought I had enough rope to make it to the water, but I was wrong. So can you please hurry the fuck up? I'm in a lot of pain right now."
Cooper, being the best climber, as well as the only one strong enough to pull anyone else through the hole from the other side, was selected to climb to the surface first. The rope was slippery with a generous coating of lube-water, making for a greater Difficulty Class on Cooper's Climb checks.
With each failed attempt, Cooper got a little bit higher up the rope, scraping more and more of the slime off. Of course, that meant that he repeatedly landed a little bit harder on Dave with each successive failure. He honestly wasn't trying to hit Dave in the nuts every time he came down, but what could he do?
On the seventh or eighth try, Cooper finally broke the surface of the upper pool, and was breathing fresh forest air.
Tim climbed through next, followed by Julian and Ravenus.
After giving their arms a rest, and with the help of another of Julian's summoned magical horses, they successfully pulled Dave's fat ass to freedom. |
4d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | B.Oar Guests | (Original Publication Date: June 24,2016)
"This place gives me the creeps," said Julian. The living room of this house was at least as big as the dining area of the Whore's Head Inn, and a great deal cleaner. But there was more to his unease than a fancy sofa and a rug more valuable than him and his friends combined should account for. "There's something familiar about it, but I'm absolutely positive I've never been here before."
Ravenus dug his talons into Julian's right shoulder. "I share your concerns, sir." It was an unnecessary statement. Being Julian's familiar, he and Julian shared all their feelings, whether they wanted to or not, via their Empathic Link. He was only talking to break the uneasy silence of the room. "Also, I can't shake the feeling that we're being watched."
Though Julian felt the same way, he hadn't wanted to bring it up until he was sure that the flutters of motion he kept perceiving just beyond his periphery were more than paranoia.
"It's just the flicker of the fire playing tricks on your eyes," said Dave.
It would have been a reasonable explanation in a reasonable world, but Julian had seen a lot of weird shit since entering the world of Caverns and Creatures. Tiny gremlins peeking out from behind vases or mischievous spirits warping light as they darted about the room were perhaps less likely candidates than shadows cast by the firelight, but certainly not outside the realm of possibilities. Dave could dismiss Julian's feelings all he wanted, but neither he nor Tim had moved more than ten feet away from Cooper, and it certainly wasn't because of the warmth of the fire.
"I'm sweating my balls off," said Cooper. Though his half-orc form was mostly silhouetted against the flames, Julian could make out streaks of sweat running through the filth down his bare chest. "Why do I have to stay so close to the –"
A fart ripped out of Cooper's ass like a god was squeezing a roll of bubble wrap. The fireplace roared as the light in the room grew to near blinding intensity. It only lasted a second, the fire having consumed all but a trace of fart.
"That's why," said Tim. "This is a classy place, and we don't need you fucking this up for us by stinking up the whole goddamn house."
Dave's head jerked to the right. His eyes darted back and forth like he was trying to get a lock on something he was sure he'd seen.
"What's the matter, Dave?" asked Julian.
"Fine, you've got me. I'm starting to sober up now, and there's definitely something weird about this place. Maybe we should just go."
"Are you out of your fucking minds?" asked Tim. "The hottest piece of ass in Cardinia just asked us back to her place to meet her friends."
"And then disappeared for half an hour. Where are all these friends? I don't see any friends."
Tim shrugged. "They're probably all getting ready for us. Rubbing scented oils on each other, having a pillow fight, whatever the fuck girls do to get horned up."
"I don't hear any pillow fights," said Cooper. "What if there are no friends? What if she wants to take all four of us at once, or for us to do things to each other while she plays with her cooch?"
"Plays with her..." Tim unstoppered his flask and gulped back a swig of stonepiss. "Where the hell is that even coming from?"
"Dude, this shit happens. Rich people get bored with normal hookups. They have to keep upping the stakes to get aroused. All I'm saying is that maybe we should talk about some ground rules before she has us all spanking and dick-slapping each other."
Julian expected Tim to continue berating Cooper for his wild speculations, but Tim stared off into the distance, biting his lower lip.
Even Julian had to admit that what Cooper was saying made more sense than an extraordinarily good-looking woman randomly inviting the four of them over for some wild sex party with her and her seemingly nonexistent friends. "I could use a drink."
Tim offered his flask.
"No thanks," said Julian. "I can't handle straight stonepiss like you can."
Wheels squeaked as a small trolley rolled out from behind a luxurious blue sofa. On top sat a powder blue porcelain tea set, complete with cups, saucers, a sugar bowl, and a large teapot. It rolled right up to Julian, then a little further as he took a step back.
"Don't worry," said Tim, who actually looked relieved. "This is one of those toys that rich people have to impress their guests. Whenever someone says they're thirsty, the trolley rolls up to them and offers some tea. Simple Contingency and Telekinesis spells. You'll learn those when you become a less-shitty sorcerer."
Julian laughed nervously. It was kind of charming. "So what do I do?"
"Guys, stop!" said Dave. "I know what this place is! We have to get out of here right now!"
"First, you ignore Dave." Tim removed the lid from the teapot and emptied his flask into it. "Next you spike the drink." He delicately picked up a teacup by the handle. "Then you take a cup." He frowned, holding the cup close to his eye. "Hmm... there's a chip in this one." He shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Finally, you –"
"What's your name?" said the cup, wide eyes and a happy smile appearing on its side.
"JESUS!" cried Tim, flinging the cup to the floor, where it shattered into a billion porcelain shards.
"Sacré Bleu!" said a voice from behind Julian. "He has killed Crack Baby!"
Julian looked back at Cooper. The candlestick on the fireplace mantel, standing behind a decorative fringe of silk roses and vines, had ignited all three of its wicks... and also sprouted a face.
"You hotheaded fool!" said the clock next to the candlestick. "Do you have wax in your ears? We were specifically told not to reveal ourselves until instructed to do so."
"Shut up, Monsieur Clockwise, you heartless timepiece! Ze halfling has killed Crack Baby!"
"It was an accident," said Tim. "I didn't expect it to... Hang on... Did you say its name was Crack Baby?"
The candlestick raised its candle arms. "It is a... how you say... nick name? He is a child, with a crack on his head." It frowned. "He was, anyway."
Mr. Clockwise bowed his head. "His mother suffered a similar accident years ago."
"Hmph!" said the candlestick, folding his arms indignantly. "Zis time was clearly an accident. Ze case with Madame Potter, I still have my doubts."
"You can't prove anything, Waxoff!" the teapot slurred through its mouth-spout. "If you'd kept your filthy wick to yourself *hiccup* she might still be with us today."
Waxoff raised his chin. "I never touched her."
"You son of a bitch! I can still taste the wax on her spout!"
The teacups surrounding Mr. Potter rattled in their saucers, but chose not to reveal their faces.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" said Mr. Clockwise. "Did someone spill wine in Mr. Potter?"
"Heh heh heh..." Mr. Potter's laugh was not at all pleasant. "Not this time, Clockblocker. This was the good stuff."
Waxoff slapped himself in the forehead. "Little halfling, what have you done?"
The hands on Mr. Clockwise's face spun in opposite directions. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. This is not good."
"What's going on?" asked Tim.
"Monsieur Potter has zis problem, you see," said Waxoff. "He cannot handle ze alcohol."
"I'll show you what I can handle, you limp-wicked son of a *hiccup*. Come over here, and I'll kick your waxy ass."
"No," said Tim. "I mean in a more general sense. What the fuck is going on here?"
"It's Mordred," said Dave. "I don't know how we didn't catch on as soon as we met her in the tavern. Her tits were threatening to burst out of that yellow dress. She wouldn't stop rattling on about how much she loves books. Her name is Bella."
"Shit!" said Cooper. "It all makes sense. Mordred is Bella!" He scratched his ass in thought. "Now I'm conflicted. Does this make it gay?"
Dave shook his head. "No, Cooper. Mordred just ripped off another story and dropped it into his fantasy world." He stroked his beard. "I wonder if Mr. Potter's alcoholism was his doing, or if it happened after we showed up."
"Oh dear, oh dear," said Mr. Clockwise. "If the master sees this, we'll all be doomed!"
"Take it easy, Tick Tock," said Tim. "He should sober up if I pour all the booze out of him. Hell, I was planning to do that anyway."
"I'd like to see you try it, half-man!" Mr. Potter's cheeks swelled up as he took a deep, bubbly breath through his spout, then aimed it, tight-lipped, right at Tim.
Tim stopped mid-step. "You wouldn't."
The corners of the spout-mouth turned upward in a sinister grin.
A key turned in the lock of the door on the far side of the room.
"She's come back!" said Waxoff. He looked down at his base, which was obscured by fake vines and roses. "French Tickler! Hurry and hide zis mess!"
A wooden handle poked up wide-eyed from behind the silk greenery, then raised a feather to wipe the side of her mouth.
"Oh dear!" cried French Tickler, revealing herself to be a living feather duster as she hopped over the roses and fluttered to the floor.
Ravenus ruffled his feathers, and Julian felt a stirring in his loins.
"Dude," whispered Julian. "She's a cleaning tool."
"What have you done?" cried French Tickler, scurrying across the floor as fast as her feathers would carry her.
Ravenus hopped down from Julian's shoulder and met her at the porcelain shards. "Good day, ma'am," he said with a bow.
"What are you doing, stupid bird!" said French Tickler. "Get out of ze way, or make yourself useful and lift ze rug. If ze master learns of zis, both of our feathers will be plucked for sure!"
Ravenus stared blankly at her, clearly dumbfounded. To a casual observer, it may have been mistaken for love at first sight, but Julian knew better. His familiar could only understand the Elven language, which was English with a terrible British accent, rather than a terrible French one.
Julian cleared his throat, then fake-coughed the words, "Lift the rug."
"Ah, very good!" Ravenus used his beak to pick up the side of the rug. French Tickler swept the remains of Crack Baby under it, finishing just as the door swung open.
"Bella!" shouted every piece of animated houseware in unison.
Bella scanned the room sternly, her hands balled in fists on the hips of her now unmistakably recognizable yellow dress, then grinned wide.
"You scamps! You weren't supposed to introduce yourselves until I got back!"
"What can I say, Mademoiselle?" said Waxoff. "Monsieur Clockwise has a... how you say, fat mouth?"
Mr. Clockwise's hands shot up to noon. "It's big mouth, and no I don't! You spoke before I did."
Bella rolled her eyes as she glided across the floor. "These two, always bickering." She took Waxoff down from the mantel and caressed his center candle with one finger. "Don't get too overheated, Waxoff. I may need you later, in the library."
Tim looked smugly at Julian, his eyebrows raised.
Julian had had his doubts before, but he now surmised that Tim was correct. The way she said 'library' was dripping with innuendo. Though he found it odd that someone rich enough to own all of these magically-animated knickknacks would be using a candle instead of a more conventional living sex toy.
"So," said Tim. "Please tell us more about your friends."
Bella beamed down at him. "Of course! Have you met everyone? This is Waxoff, that's Clockwise, and French Tickler..."
Tim's expression grew dimmer with each name. These were not the Girls Gone Wild that he had assured them of.
"Um...," said Cooper. "Do you have any friends who are vacuum cleaners?"
Bella paused. "I beg your pardon?"
"Never mind."
"Okay." Bella smiled brightly as she stepped toward the trolley. Julian, his friends, and every anthropomorphic utensil in the room winced as the rug crunched under her foot. Fortunately, she was the only one who seemed not to notice. "And these are the teacup kids. Oh my, where is Crack Baby?"
"He's gone to meet his whore of a moth–"
Tim plugged a finger into Mr. Potter's spout. "He's, uh... We're playing Hide-and-Seek. He's hiding."
Bella looked sternly down at the shitfaced teapot. "Mr. Potter."
Tim looked up at Julian.
They couldn't keep this up while Bella was standing right there interrogating him directly. Julian shrugged and jerked his head to the side. Tim removed his finger.
"Yes, m'lady?"
Bella put her hands on her hips. "Why have you not yet served our guests?" She picked up Mr. Potter and poured his contents into his children's heads.
Faces gradually sprouted onto the sides of the cups, but they lacked Crack Baby's adorable cheer. These faces were cross-eyed, tight-lipped, and puffy-cheeked, like they were all about to throw up. One by one, they began to waddle off of their saucers in random directions.
"I hope it's still warm enough," said Bella. "Mr. Potter needs a lesson in manners."
"I beg your forgiveness, Miss." Mr. Potter's voice was the very definition of sobriety. "I was out of sorts. I promise I'll never –" His eyes widened, looking down at the trolley. "No!"
"Shit!" said Tim, as the teacup nearest him stepped off the side. He managed to catch it before it hit the floor, then hurriedly passed it off to Dave as a second cup teetered on the edge.
Julian picked up the remaining two cups to avoid further incident, and passed one of them to Cooper.
The combination of Cooper's stench and it's likely first experience with alcohol was too much for the little guy to take. Hot boozy tea poured out of the side of the cup all over Cooper's chest and down to his loincloth.
"Son of a bitch!" cried Cooper as the infant teacup's vomit soaked through to scald his dick. "This is why I never hold babies."
Bella rushed over to take the teacup from Cooper's hand. "Oh my! Are you okay?"
"I may need a minute before we head off to the library, but I think I'll – Oh, you were talking to him."
"I'm much better now," said the teacup, which Bella hugged firmly in her ample cleavage.
Dave and Tim necked back their own tea, Dave presumably to avoid being vomited on, and Tim presumably just for the booze. Julian tried to gulp his own, but could only manage sips. The combination of hot tea and stonepiss was just about as palatable as he'd expected it to be.
"Do you have any food here?" asked Dave. "Or something else to drink?"
Bella placed Mr. Potter back down on the trolley a little harder than was strictly necessary and narrowed her eyes at Dave. "I'll see if I can find something in the kitchen." She stomped toward the same door she'd just come from, giving Crack Baby's remains a good crunch on the way.
Why that would be giving Julian an erection, he didn't even want to contemplate. Unless it was something... "Ravenus!" He scanned the floor just in time to catch Ravenus's and French Tickler's tailfeathers disappearing under the blue sofa. He supposed that was marginally less disturbing as he double-layered the sides of his serape to hide the growing bulge in his crotch area.
"What crawled up her ass?" asked Tim when the door finally slammed shut.
Julian made eye contact with everyone to try to keep their eyes above his waistline. "I think she might have taken offense to Dave's request. It was like saying her hospitality hasn't been good enough."
Dave's face looked like he was having a hard time taking a dump. "Can I talk to you guys..." He glanced at Waxoff and Mr. Clockwise. "...in private?"
As discreetly as they could, Julian, Dave, Cooper, and Tim placed their cups back onto the trolley, then shuffled a few steps away from the confirmed living objects in the room and huddled together.
"Dibs on the feather duster," said Cooper.
Julian laughed. "Good luck with that. I think someone's already beaten you to the punch."
Everyone's gaze lowered to Julian's crotch. His efforts to conceal the bulge only brought more attention to it.
"You sick fuck!" said Cooper. "You shoved her down your pants?"
"What? No! I... it's Ravenus."
Cooper scratched his head. "You shoved Ravenus down your pants?"
"Julian! Cooper!" said Dave. "Shut the fuck up. I didn't bring you over here to call dibs. And seriously, you picked the feather duster before Bella?"
Cooper and Tim's eyes widened. "Dibs on Bella!" they said in one voice.
Dave closed his eyes and lowered his head.
"What did you bring us over here for?" asked Julian.
"I have a really bad feeling about this."
Cooper put a hand on Dave's shoulder. "Is this your first time?"
"No!"
"First time with a woman?"
"Shut up, Cooper!" Dave shook Cooper's hand off his shoulder. "It's not the woman I'm worried about. Mr. Clockwise mentioned a master, and he looked like he was about to shit his gears. Is it not painfully obvious to anyone but me who this master is?"
"We don't know that Mordred ripped off the entire movie," said Julian. "Maybe Bella's the master."
"I don't think so. She's a little unhinged, maybe, but she hardly seems terrifying."
"If there's a..." Tim glanced back to make sure they were still alone, then lowered his voice. "If there's a beast running around this place, then why the hell would Bella be running around in the middle of the night picking up random dudes in a tavern?"
"Maybe he likes to watch," said Cooper.
Tim grimaced. "I don't know if I'm comfortable doing it while there's a giant wildebeest man whacking off in the corner."
Cooper bit his lip and nodded slowly. "I think I can manage."
"But what if he wants to do more than watch?"
"Assholes!" said Dave. "Shut the fuck up! It wasn't in the middle of the night. It was mid-morning. We were still drinking from the night before."
A feeling of dread came over Julian, mixing awkwardly with Ravenus's arousal. He hoped he wasn't screwing up his familiar's mojo. "Where are you going with this, Dave?"
"Maybe she was just in for some breakfast. We chatted her up and pretended to be interested in all her talk about books. But her tits were all up in our faces, so we took everything she said about her passion for books as innuendo."
Tim squeezed his head between his palms like he was trying to produce thoughts like orange juice. "Hang on. So you're saying there's not going to be an orgy?"
"I'm saying there's a giant monster around here with a bad temper and insecurity issues. What do you think he's going to think when he finds four drunk assholes drinking his booze, in his living room, chillin' with his hot-ass girl? You think he's going to buy that 'We just wanted to check out her book collection' bullshit? Cooper can't even fucking read!"
"Dude," said Cooper. "Don't tell her that. You know, just in case you're wrong."
The key turned in the lock. Julian, Dave, Cooper, and Tim sprang back to their former location like the rest of the floor was made of lava.
When the door swung open, Bella glided in holding a smaller tray with four crystal shot glasses on it, and a small matching decanter. Neither the decanter nor the glasses appeared to be alive, and all of them contained some kind of dark blue liquid.
"Use your Diplomacy," Dave whispered to Julian. "Tell her politely that something's come up, and we need to leave right away."
"I hope you gentlemen will find this suitable," Bella said contemptibly to Dave. "It's a blueberry wine, made with berries I picked myself from the garden outside."
Dave smiled weakly and looked to Julian.
"We, um..." said Julian. "We have to go now. My grandmother died."
"Oh my!" said Bella. She pursed her lips in thought. "Just now?"
"Yes."
"But how did you learn of this news?"
Shit. "She and I were very close. We have, or rather had, an Empathic Link."
Bella frowned, her gaze falling to his junk. "We express our grief in different ways."
Julian feigned a distress-induced stomach cramp, letting his serape fall loosely over his erection. Dammit, Ravenus! How long does it take to fuck a feather duster?
Bella set the tray down on the other side of the drink trolley. Mr. Potter stared longingly at the dark blue liquid.
"You mustn't leave without first sampling the wine," said Bella. "I'd been saving it for my seventeenth birthday, but now I've already poured it."
Tim and Cooper coughed.
"My," said Cooper. "You've blossomed early."
Tim stepped forward. "I think I'll have that drink now." He, Julian, Dave, and Cooper took their glasses.
Julian raised his glass to Bella. "Happy birthday." Dave, Cooper, and Tim mumbled something along the same lines. It was clear that all four of them were in agreement that it was definitely time to leave. They tilted their heads back and dumped the contents of their glasses down their throats.
Julian found the taste surprisingly bitter for blueberry wine, and it had a consistency just a little thinner than honey. His vision started to blur as his mind grew foggy. He turned his head, but the network was laggy. His vision followed a second later, and with some concentration, he was able to focus on a stunning, healthy-bosomed woman in a yellow dress.
"You're pretty. What's your name?"
A stunning, healthy-bosomed woman in a yellow dress smiled at something on the floor near him. He turned his head to follow her gaze, and his vision dragged along like the other end of a heavy accordion. A little boy lay face down on the floor with an empty shot glass in his hand.
"You shouldn't be drinking, little boy."
A stout, bearded midget fell on top of the boy, and some kind of monster swayed like he might fall next.
Julian looked down at his own crotch. "Why am I so... goddamn horny right now?" His vision darkened as he felt his body falling backward. He didn't feel himself hit the floor. |
4d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 6 | "Hello?" a voice echoed from some distance away. Cooper's voice.
Julian opened his eyes, but it did him no good. He was engulfed in complete darkness. The floor he lay on was rough damp stone. It felt slimy on his fingertips.
"Hello?" Cooper said again. "Come on, man. Talk to me!"
Shit.
"Are you alive or not?"
Shit shit.
"I swear to God, if you don't speak to me, I'm going to take a dump in your head."
What?
"Cooper?" Julian called out.
"Julian?"
"Who are you talking to?"
"The bucket in my cell."
"Oh." That raised a number of questions in Julian's mind, but the most prominent was, "Why?"
"Common courtesy," said Cooper. "I don't want to shit in it if it's magically alive, do I?"
That made more sense than Julian was anticipating. "You're a good man, Cooper."
Though Julian knew in his mind and in his heart what the following sounds and smells were, he tried to convince himself that it was just a forty-year-old can of spray cheese. If that bucket was alive, it must have a hell of a Willpower Save.
"Jesus Christ!" shouted Tim from Julian's left. "What the fuck is that?"
"I think that blueberry wine was laced with something," said Cooper. "It's giving me the runs."
"Where are you? Specifically, I mean. And more general, where the hell are –" CLANG "Son of a bitch!"
"We're in some kind of dungeon," said Cooper. "Our cell doors are locked."
"Thanks, Cooper," said Tim. "I just found that out... with my face."
Someone was still unaccounted for. Julian took a moment to clear the cobwebs out of his mind.
"Ravenus!" said Julian when he was able to focus. "Has anyone seen Ravenus?"
"No," said Dave from the cell adjacent to Julian's. "But I'm fine. Thanks for asking."
Shit. "I was going to say you next."
"No you weren't. Shut up."
"Come on, man," said Julian. "He's my familiar, and you're..."
"I'm what?"
Julian frowned. "I... I don't actually know how to finish that sentence."
Slow clapping from Dave's cell echoed annoyingly through the dark dungeon. "Well done, Captain Diplomacy. I'd say that's what a Natural 1 sounds like."
"Uh-uh," said Tim. "That was a piss poor Diplomacy roll to be sure, but a better example of a Natural 1 is when you talk about your goddamn dead grandmother while sporting a raging hard-on."
"That wasn't my fault!" said Julian. "It was Ravenus."
Cooper snorted. "I guess that explains why he was worried more about the bird than you, Dave."
Tim, Dave, and Cooper shared a laugh.
Julian pointed middle fingers in the directions Cooper's and Dave's voices were coming from, as they were the only ones who could see in the dark. "You know what? Fuck all of you."
Dave stopped laughing. "How are we going to get out of here? Tim, can you pick the lock on your cell door?"
"I don't think so," said Tim. "Not in the dark with nothing to use but my dick."
"Okay," said Dave. "How about you, Cooper?"
"I don't think my dick will even fit in the hole."
"No, stupid! I meant can you break through the door with your Barbarian Rage?"
"I can give it a shot." Cooper breathed in and out a few times. "I'm really angry!"
A series of grunts and groans started in low, then rose to a crescendo joined by the clanging of steel bars, and finally petered out with a long wet fart... and possibly some shit.
Cooper took a few more breaths. "Um... no."
"Shit!" said Dave. "That leaves you, Julian. Do you have any spells memorized that can get us out of here?"
Julian shrugged. "I have Mount."
"Of course you do." Dave sighed. "Well, give it a try, I guess."
Julian stood up and waved his arms around to make sure he had enough room in the cell to summon a horse. Satisfied, he pointed his hand at the floor.
"Horse!"
Displaced air shifted around him. His summoned horse whinnied nervously. Being called into existence would be disconcerting enough without being in total darkness as well.
Julian groped the air until he found the horse's mane, and stroked it gently. "Easy, girl... or boy." He couldn't tell if it was male or female in the dark without groping around for its junk.
The horse calmed its trembling and whinnying as a stream of pungent urine loudly splattered the floor under it.
"That's okay, buddy," said Julian, continuing to stroke its mane. "You feel better now?"
"Julian!" said Tim. "How about a little less bonding and a little more door kicking?"
"Alright! Give me a second." Julian discovered that his cell wasn't quite as big as he thought. It took some maneuvering to get the horse completely turned around. "Okay, friend. Let's see what you've got. Give us a good kick."
The horse leaned down and kicked its rear legs back. There was a loud clang of hoof against steel.
"Nice job!"
"Not nice enough," said Cooper. "The door didn't budge. They're strong as fuck."
Dave sighed. "I figured that would be the case after Cooper couldn't break it."
"Well shit," said Tim. "Now what do we do?"
"Now we wait," said Dave.
"Wait for what?"
"Yeah," said Cooper. "That plan sucks ass."
Dave cleared his throat. "If you'd let me explain." When everyone remained quiet, he continued. "I've been thinking about this. We've obviously come in somewhere in the middle of the movie. Bella has already succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome, which is why the Beast allows her to come and go as she pleases. But we know we haven't gotten to the end yet, because all the servants are still furniture and shit."
"So what?" said Tim.
"Yeah, seriously," said Cooper. "I mean, I'm sorry your childhood was so shitty that it earned you an encyclopedic knowledge of a little girl movie, but how the fuck is that supposed to get us out of these cells?"
"I'm just saying that maybe we can exploit our knowledge –"
"Your knowledge."
"Fine, asshole," said Dave. "My knowledge of the story to our advantage."
Julian guided his horse back around to face the cell door. "I'm not even convinced that we're 'in' the movie. I mean sure, there are similarities, but we don't know for sure that Mordred ripped off the entire script."
"It's all we've got to work with," said Dave. "And if I'm right, then I think our best chance of escaping is when that dickhead... What's his name, Garçon? Anyway, when he and the villagers come to raid the house."
"Sorry," said Julian. "It's been a while since I've seen the film, but didn't the villagers get their asses kicked?"
"Yes. But we are outside variables. Tim has already killed one of the Beast's servants."
Julian sighed. The little flicker of hope Dave had given him was snuffed out. "You really think taking out Crack Baby is going to turn the tide of battle?"
"Hey shitheads," said Tim. "For the record, that was an accident, and I kinda feel bad about it. So could you maybe shut the fuck up?"
"I'm talking about the butterfly effect," said Dave.
"That shitty Ashton Kutcher movie?" said Cooper. "Shit, I was way off. I thought we were talking about... Hold up, I don't remember any talking teacups in The Butterfly Effect."
"Not the movie, idiot. The scientific principle that tiny variables can lead to enormous differences in –"
A door creaked open to Julian's left, beyond Dave and Tim's cells, letting in the faintest flickering light. The light grew stronger as Waxoff shuffled into view, followed by the squeaky-wheeled drink trolley. Mr. Potter sat on top, but his children were absent.
"Jackoff!" said Cooper. "What the fuck, man? Let us out of here."
Julian cleared his throat. "His name is Waxoff."
"Whatever. I'm not good with names."
Waxoff raised his candle arms and his hand-flames flared up like torches. "Silence!" When his flames died back down to normal, he continued in a calm tone. "Ze prisoners will present their soup buckets."
"Fuck," said Cooper. "That's a soup bucket?"
Julian knew it was pointless, but felt he had to make a token effort at Diplomacy. "Why are we locked up? Why are you doing this?"
While Mr. Potter vomited soup into the buckets Tim and Dave held out to him, Waxoff shuffled to Julian's cell and narrowed his eyes at the horse.
"What is zis dumb animal doing in here?"
Don't volunteer any information. Keep them guessing. "How should I know?" said Julian. "I just woke up."
Waxoff raised his eyebrows and smiled at Julian. "Ha ha! Ze joke is on your, monsieur! I was talking to ze horse!"
"Wow," said Cooper. "I haven't heard a joke that shitty since... um... Dave, when's the last time you made a joke?"
"Soup bucket!" snapped Mr. Potter. The trolley had now rolled in front of Julian and Cooper's cells.
"Fuck off," said Cooper. "I'm not hungry.
Tim and Dave paused their slurping to laugh. Poor Cooper. But Julian had to admit, it was kind of funny.
Mr. Potter turned to face Julian. "And you?"
It occurred to Julian that he might make a show of solidarity with Cooper by joining him in a hunger strike, but neither Mr. Potter nor Waxoff seemed the slightest bit put off by Cooper's refusal to eat. Anyway, he would need the energy.
He looked around his cell, now illuminated by Waxoff's flames. He found his bucket under his horse, filled to the rim with horse piss.
"Shit," said Julian. Back to the hunger strike. He straightened and folded his arms. "I'm not hungry either!"
Waxoff shrugged. "Suit yourself." He continued past Julian and Cooper's cells, and the trolley followed.
As the light from Waxoff's candles moved further down the hall, another prisoner held his bucket out from the cell next to Cooper's. His face was obscured by long, matted hair, but Julian figured him for a human from the look of his large filthy hands.
When the other prisoner had been served his paltry ration of soup, Waxoff led Mr. Potter's trolley back to the dungeon entrance.
Julian waited a full minute, once again engulfed in darkness, before addressing the mysterious stranger.
"Excuse me," Julian called out. "I know you're there. I saw your hands. Who are you?"
"Why don't you ask the dwarf?" said the stranger. His voice was deep, but rough, like it hadn't been used in a while.
Julian turned his head the other way, staring into pitch-black darkness in the other direction. "Dave? Friend of yours?"
"I have no idea who he is," said Dave. "I didn't even see his hands."
"I am the one you spoke of," said the stranger. "My name is Garçon."
"Shit!" said Dave. "If you're here, then –"
"That is correct. The battle you spoke of is not in the future, but in the past. Nearly one month ago, by my calculation. A terrible catastrophe. My hubris brought many a good man to an early and grisly death."
"But you managed to survive," said Tim, his tone suggesting just a hint of accusation.
Julian tried to glare at him, but then remembered that neither one of them could see.
"'Tis true, child," said Garçon. I deserved not the mercy of the gods, and was certain I had instead suffered their wrath. For I was bitten by the one you call the Beast. Then I was thrown off the rooftop and impaled upon an iron spike. My departure for the deep Abyss seemed imminent. But in their mercy, the gods saw fit to spare me. I woke up in this cell, my wounds all healed, but I'm a hollow shell of the man I once was."
"I know how you feel," said Cooper. He sounded uncharacteristically sincere.
"Do you, friend?"
"Sure. I feel like I just shat my entire insides out."
Tim clapped his hands once. "Well, if feelings time is over, how about we brainstorm a way to get out of these cells?"
"It's hopeless," said Garçon. "I flexed against these bars with all of my considerable might, but to no avail. Make yourselves comfortable, friends, for all hope is lost."
Julian shook his cell door. "Quiet, Garçon! We still have a chance. We have a man on the outside, don't forget."
Garçon grunted. "And this man on the outside, he is big and strong enough to face the Beast and all of its minions alone? Enough to lay siege to this whole accursed house single-handedly?"
"Well, he's technically more of a bird than a man. But he's already in the house."
"You said he was outside."
"I meant he's outside of the dungeon."
"No, I'm not," said Ravenus. "I'm right here, sir."
"Ravenus!" said Julian. "What are you... Have you been here the whole time?"
"No, sir. I've only just arrived."
"How did you get in here?"
"I hitched a ride under the drink trolley."
Julian had pinpointed his familiar's voice as coming from atop the horse's rear, and tried to face that direction as he spoke.
"Listen, buddy. I've got kind of a dangerous mission I have to send you on. Do you think you're up for it?"
"Anything for you, sir!"
"I wouldn't ask this of you if all of our lives weren't on the line, but I need you to search the house and find a key to these cell doors."
"I thought you might say that, sir. And so I've already taken the liberty."
The bars of Tim's cell clanged, as though he'd jumped on them like a spider monkey. "Are you fucking with us, bird?" he asked in a British accent.
Ravenus started to gag and retch.
"Ravenus? Are you alright?" Julian was mildly concerned, but didn't sense any distress from his familiar.
Something splattered on the floor, like pudding dropped from a height.
"Dude, stop it. You're starting to freak me out."
Something else dropped on the floor, but this something clinked.
"You swallowed it?" asked Julian.
"Yes, sir. In case I was discovered."
"Way to go, Ravenus!" said Dave. "When did he become a bad-ass?"
"What the fuck is going on?" asked Cooper, who couldn't understand the Elven tongue. "All I saw was a bird squawk until he threw up. No one ever gets all excited when I do that."
Julian poked the puddle of bird vomit on the floor until his finger touched something metallic. He picked up the key and wiped it on his serape.
"How did you find this so fast?"
"The lady showed me where it was," said Ravenus.
"Bella?"
"No, sir, the other one."
"French Tickler? She betrayed her own people to help you?"
"I don't mean to boast, sir. But I have a very persuasive cloaca."
There was no point in waiting around in the dark anymore. Julian held the key up in front of his face. "Light."
The dungeon lit up immediately, bright light radiating from the black key.
Dave and Cooper shielded their eyes.
"Mercy of the gods!" cried Garçon, his face pressed against the bars of his cell. "You've done it!"
Julian unlocked his own cell, his friends' cells, and finally Garçon's cell.
The past month had not been kind to the old villain. Garçon's torn shirt hung loose on his withered frame. His unshaven jaw was still strong, but his dark hooded eyes were dull with defeat.
The five of them stood, along with a bird and a horse, in the corridor between the cells.
"So..." said Dave. "Now what?"
"Now we get the fuck out of here," said Tim. "Garçon, do you know where we are in relation to the front entrance? Or maybe just a first floor window? I'd like to avoid as much living furniture as possible."
Garçon scratched at his long stubble. "If I had to guess, I'd say we're below the kitchen."
"Where's the library?" asked Julian.
Cooper squinted and rubbed his chin. "I think it's two doors down from who gives a shit. Why the fuck do we need to go to the –" His eyes focused past Julian. "Dude, are you okay?"
Julian turned around. Garçon was sweating profusely. His hands were trembling.
"It's j-j-just as I f-f-f-feared," said Garçon. "I am afflicted with the same curse as that wretched beast."
"How did that happen?" asked Cooper. "Did you also tell an old lady to fuck off?"
Everyone looked at Cooper.
"What? So I saw the movie. Fuck you guys."
Garçon's skin began to sprout coarse black hairs. The two biggest toes on each bare foot, and the three smallest ones, melded together to form two large pointed toes. He wailed in agony as his knees locked straight, then began to bend backwards. The wails turned to squeals as his face elongated, sprouting tusks from the bottom of his mouth, his nostrils morphing into a pig snout.
"Cooper," shouted Tim from conspicuously farther back than he had been. "Push him back into the cell."
"Fuck that," said Cooper. "He's got shingles or some shit."
Julian backed away from Garçon. "We should get out of here."
"Let's go!" Tim and Dave were at the end of the corridor, holding the thick wooden door open. Julian led his horse toward the stairs beyond the open door. Cooper followed behind them.
At the top of the stairs there was another thick wooden door, but when this one was opened, the other side was disguised as a plain section of wall, indistinguishable from any other section of wall in the kitchen.
"Secret door," said Julian. "Cool."
"Yeah, real cool," said Tim. "Please get this horse out of here."
Julian led the horse through the secret doorway into a kitchen big enough to accommodate a medium-volume restaurant. The soup smell in here was much more potent than it had been in the dungeon, where it'd had to compete with half-orc shit and horse-piss. It was coming from a black, three-legged cast iron cooking pot, big enough to boil Tim whole, in a large hearth. Julian's stomach rumbled.
Once Cooper was inside, he slammed the door behind him and leaned all his weight against the disguised door.
"The intruders have escaped the dungeon!" announced a steel serving set. A pair of angry eyes had appeared on its domed cover, and it spoke through lips formed from cover and tray.
The cooking pot likewise revealed its true nature, taking what appeared to be a defensive position behind a wooden washtub as fast as its three short legs would carry it.
"We are not your enemies!" said Julian. "We only want to get –" A steel cleaver bit into the pantry door next to Julian's head. The handle was dripping water. Julian looked in the direction it had flown from and saw the cooking pot pulling its handles out of the washtub. One handle held a bread knife, and the other a rolling pin.
"Hit the deck!" Cried Julian.
The horse started whinnying and screaming. This was a little too much excitement so soon after it had come into existence.
Cooper slid down the wall to a sitting position on the floor. A homicidal cauldron was enough to deal with without adding a Garçon monster into the mix.
Julian, Tim, and Dave ducked behind the cupboards that stood between them and the pot hurling handleful after handleful of cutlery. Knives got stuck in the cupboards above. Spoons bounced off onto he floor. Forks did a bit of the former and a lot of the latter.
The horse's screaming stopped. Julian looked back just in time to see a dozen bloodied knives and two forks fall simultaneously to the floor from where the horse had been standing just a moment ago.
"Goddammit!" said Julian. "Is two hours really too much to ask?"
*THUNK THUNK*
The section of wall Cooper was leaning against challenged the power of the friction between his ass and the floor. He should have wiped.
*CRASH SMASH*
Dishes were exploding on the cupboards above them. Had Mr. Cooking Pot run out of knives?
"We have to make our move now," said Tim, staring down at the broken porcelain shards accumulating on the floor. "I don't have any shoes. I don't want to have to John McClane my way out of here."
There was a good twenty feet of open space between the end of the counter and the door out of the kitchen. Julian remembered how Bella had a weird habit of locking the door every time she left the living room. If the master of the house had her following some kind of weird containment protocol, there was a good chance the kitchen door would be locked.
"Guys!" shouted Cooper. "Dude seriously wants in the kitchen. I don't know how much longer I can hold him back."
Dave shrugged. "It looks like he's out of knives. He can't very well kill us with dishes, can he?"
Julian licked his lips. "Grab a fork. We might need you to pick that lock."
"One step ahead of you." Tim produced a fork from his pocket.
"All right," said Julian. He looked at Dave. "We need to cover Tim."
"With what?"
"With whatever." Julian peeked over the counter top, bracing himself to be hit in the face with a flying dish. He found the serving set and grabbed it by the handle atop its domed cover.
"Unhand me at once, you brute!" said the serving set.
Julian ducked back down and held the set out to Dave. "Take the tray."
"Once the master hears of this, you will be AAAH AH AAAAH!"
"We'll be what?" said Dave, holding the steel tray.
"I think we just ripped his jaws apart," said Julian. "He can't form consonants now."
"AH AAAAAH AAAAAAH AAAH!"
Julian looked back at Cooper. "Hold him just a little bit longer." He nodded at Dave and Tim. "Let's go."
Julian and Dave used the cover and tray of the serving set as shields while escorting Tim to the door leading out of the kitchen.
The iron pot flung dishes like Frisbees. The serving tray raised cries of vowels every time it caught one.
While Tim worked on the door, Julian and Dave crouched beside him, hiding as well as they could behind their makeshift shields. Finally the lock clicked open.
The cooking pot stopped throwing dishes. "Hey!" It threw down its dishes and ran out from behind the washtub.
"Come on, Cooper!" shouted Dave.
Cooper sprang to his feet and ran across the kitchen. Behind him, the door swung open to reveal the bipedal pig-monster Garçon had become.
The pot reached Julian and Dave just before Cooper did, and they swiped at it with their pieces of the serving set. The pot fought back with its little handle arms. As far as fights go, it was a pretty piss-poor effort from both sides.
Cooper ended the fight abruptly by grabbing the pot by the rim and pulling it backwards. It crashed onto the floor, spilling gallons and gallons of hot delicious soup all over Garçon's projected path.
"SQUEEEE!" cried Garçon as his hooves slipped out from under him. He landed with a splatter in the chunky brown liquid.
The cooking pot's arms weren't long enough to push itself back upright, but they were long enough to grab one of Garçon's legs.
"Let's go," said Tim.
While Garçon wrestled a cast iron pot, Julian, Tim, Dave, and Cooper hurried through the door and found themselves in the great foyer, where tapestries of what Julian assumed were likenesses of the prince in his pre-beast days hung on the side of a grand curved staircase.
"There's the front door!" said Dave. "Let's get the hell out of this place."
Julian looked up the staircase. "We have to get Bella."
"Fuck that," said Cooper.
"Dude," said Tim. "She's sixteen."
"No. I meant fuck the idea of going to get her."
Tim nodded. "Oh, right. I'm with you there."
"Come on, guys," said Julian. "She's a prisoner here the same as we were."
Dave shrugged. "She seems happy enough here to me."
Julian glared at him. "You're the one who brought up Stockholm Syndrome, dickhead." He glared down at Tim, then up at Cooper. "You all leave if you want. Ravenus and I aren't going to allow a little girl to grow up as some pervert-monster's sex puppet."
Ravenus poked his head out from under Julian's serape. "Well spoken, sir." He gave the others a glare as well.
Cooper frowned. "It sounds kind of shitty when you put it that way. Fine, I'm in."
Dave looked at Tim, then back at Julian. "We don't actually know that we're in the story. That was a guess. This could be a completely original..." He looked at his feet. "Okay, fine."
"Goddammit," said Tim. "Lead the way, Prince Charming."
Julian ran up the stairs as fast as he could. At the top he found a long hallway lined with doors leading who knew where. "She's probably in the library. Let's start from the right and hope we find her before we find the Beast."
"No," said Dave. He pointed at the double doors at the left end of the hallway. "It's over there."
"How do you know?" asked Julian.
Dave looked at his feet again and put his hands behind his back. "I recognize the doors."
Cooper snorted. Tim chuckled.
"Come on," said Julian. He ran toward the doors Dave had indicated and pulled gently on the handles. They swung open easily and silently.
Bella was reclined on a purple chaise lounge, reading a book, in the most enormous privately owned library Julian had ever seen. The large window on the far wall displayed a beautiful full moon rising over the countryside. Waxoff stood on a nearby end table, supplementing the moon's light while reading over her shoulder.
Julian cleared his throat. "Bella?"
Waxoff looked up and yelped, but Bella calmly finished the paragraph she was on and placed a bookmark between the pages before looking up from her book.
"You've escaped," said Bella. "Well done."
"We've come to rescue you," said Julian.
Bella clapped her hands. "How wonderful! Just like in a storybook. Who are you rescuing me from? Brigands? Pirates?"
"We're here to rescue you from the Beast," said Dave.
"The Beast?" Bella's smile faltered. "What beast?"
"Take your pick," said Tim. "We let Garçon out of his cell too before we found out he was a wereboar."
Julian looked at Tim. "Is that really a thing?"
"But if we have to get specific," Tim continued, "the Beast we were referring to is the one who –" His eyes watered as he waved his hand in front of his face. "Jesus Christ, Cooper. Was that you?"
Cooper took a step back. "Sorry. I haven't had anything to eat but fucking poison. My insides are all messed up. I think I just need one good solid fart to sort me out."
Dave coughed. "That one wasn't good enough? It smells like a dumpster behind a cheese factory."
Cooper's fart must have started wide and low, then risen with the subtle drafts of the hosue. Julian smelled it right about the same time Bella grabbed Waxoff and waved him in front of her face. Waxoff, in turn, was waving his fire hands in front of his own nose.
When Bella was finally able to speak, she said, "Did you say Garçon turned?"
"Yes," said Tim, his voice like a toad with throat cancer.
"Interesting. I was keeping him alive to see if that would happen." She looked at Julian. "You say he escaped as well, but he's not with you. Did you..."
"No," said Julian. "He's downstairs in the kitchen, fighting a cast iron pot."
"Big Blackie?"
"Whoa!" said Dave. "Was that what he was called before he turned into a pot?"
"Hang on." Julian stared hard at the pretty, large-bosomed girl in the yellow dress. "Are you saying you're the master of this house?"
Bella batted her eyelashes at Julian. "Why of course! Who were you expecting?"
"I don't understand," said Dave. "Who did Garçon fight a month ago?"
"That was the old master. He was no good at all." Bella placed Waxoff back on the table. "He imprisoned my father and passed his curse on to me."
Cooper scratched his left armpit. "You changed? Were you, like, a dude before?"
"And then had the gall to try to make me love him. He's no different than Garçon, or any of the rest of you." Her tone suggested that she was no longer in a playful mood.
Tim glanced back at the double doors. "So, the old master. Did you..."
Bella smiled at Tim. "Garçon did most of the work. I just finished him off."
"I don't remember that happening in the movie, Dave. Maybe it was in the sequel?"
Dave swallowed hard. "I don't know. That went direct to video."
"I can see why," said Cooper. "That shit got dark."
Dave and Tim looked to Julian expectantly. Cooper continued to scratch his armpit.
"Okay," said Julian, not really sure how to follow it. "You've clearly got some man issues." That already sounded wrong. "It's understandable, given how much you've been through. But we're not interested in your..." Nope. That won't work either. "Think back to when you met us in the tavern. You thought we were decent guys, right? Why else would you have invited us here?"
Bella shrugged. "A girl's got to eat." Coarse black hairs sprouted out of the top of her breasts as her dress began to tear at the seams.
By the time Julian looked up, her face had completely transformed into that of a wild boar. The fact that it took that much motivation for him to look away from her breasts made Julian concede that she might have had a point about men.
"Run!" screamed Dave, waddling back toward the double doors.
The four of them made it out into the hallway before Bella's transformation was complete, but Garçon was limping up the staircase, bloody drool dripping from his massive tusks.
"Shit!" said Tim. "Cooper, keep those doors closed. They're just wereboars. We might be able to take them one at a time."
"Take them with what?" cried Dave. "We didn't bring any weapons!"
Julian pulled back the part of his serape that Ravenus was tucked under. "You can't help us. Fly somewhere safe."
"Very good, sir." Ravenus pushed off of Julian's chest and dove over the railing.
Julian genuinely wanted his familiar to be safe, but he was surprised at just how little coaxing it took for Ravenus to ditch him like that.
When he looked back, Tim had emptied the contents of his pockets out onto the floor, and was spreading out a bunch of silverware he had apparently stolen from the kitchen.
"Arm yourselves," said Tim, holding on to two dinner knives.
Dave picked up a knife. "Fucking dinnerware? This isn't even pointy. What are we supposed to do? Smother him with a layer of mayonnaise?"
Julian grabbed a fork and a knife, but gave Tim a disapproving glare.
"What?"
"We weren't in enough trouble as it was? You had to go and steal their cutlery too?"
"Everyone knows you can only hurt a lycanthrope with silver weapons. I was thinking ahead, taking a precautionary measure."
Julian scoffed. "So how do you explain the spoons?"
"Fuck you. How's that for an explanation?" Tim had a point. There would be time for arguing later.
Julian stood up and brandished a knife and fork as if he were threatening an aggressive pork chop instead of the snarling monstrosity that was grunting and snorting as it hooved its way up the stairs. "Garçon! Don't do this, man. Stay back!"
"It's no use," said Dave, his sweaty hands also wielding a knife and fork. "This is his first time turning. He probably doesn't even know who he is. He's confused, angry, and hungry."
Tim held up the two knives he'd kept for himself and stood next to Julian. "Cooper, grab something to fight with. Our only hope is to take out Garçon before Bella gets out here. Everyone get ready to rush him on three."
Ravenus let out a battle caw that filled the cavernous foyer and hallway. He soared over the railing just as Garçon was getting to the top of the stairs, and he wasn't alone. French Tickler, his feather duster lover, was clutched in his talons.
"Ravenus, no!" cried Julian as Ravenus flew directly at Garçon.
From the last stair, Garçon made a wild swipe, which Ravenus narrowly avoided, and French Tickler sprayed a cloud of dust from her feathers into his face.
Garçon squealed and screamed, blindly flailing his arms, as he lost his balance and tumbled backwards down the staircase.
"Goddamn," said Cooper. "Bitch needs some Vagisil, or fucking Pine-Sol, or –"
The library doors swung open, flattening Cooper against the wall. A fully transformed Bella stood in the doorway, flaring her piggy nostrils. Her red-eyed gaze fell to Julian's knife and fork, and she snorted.
Julian knew a crotchful of dust wasn't going to save them this time.
A sound somewhere between a groan and a squeal rose from the bottom of the staircase. Bella looked over the railing and snarled down at Garçon. Before anyone had the chance to make a paltry attempt at stabbing her, she shoved Dave and Julian out of her way and bounded down the staircase, taking the stairs four at a time.
"Even better," said Tim. "Let those two duke it out, and we'll have an easier time with the winner. Back in the library."
Julian didn't know why Tim wanted to go back into the library. It seemed like they should keep an eye on the fight so that they'd know what they were up against when the victor came after them. If he was being honest, he was still concerned about Bella as well. He didn't want her to be ripped apart by Garçon, but he also didn't like the idea of having to stab a sixteen-year-old girl to death. He followed everyone into the library, unsure of whom he was rooting for in the wereboar battle below.
When Tim pulled the doors closed behind them, Dave spoke up.
"Why are we in the library? You wouldn't rather watch the fight?"
Tim shook his head. "We need every advantage we can get. I can get my Sneak-Attack bonus in if we're flanking whichever one of those assholes walks through the door. So I'm thinking I'll stand on this side, and Cooper can stand on the other side. Julian can stand over by the sofa and fire a Magic Missile. As soon one of them steps through the door, we give it everything we've got."
"Where should I stand?" asked Dave.
"A few steps back from the door. You can be bait."
"Why do I have to be bait? Julian can summon a horse to be bait."
"Dude! We're fighting with fucking forks and shit. We need Julian's Magic Missiles."
Tim crouched next to the left side of the doorway, gripping his two knives and ready to pounce.
Cooper stood on the other side, using a fork to scratch his ass.
Julian swapped his knife for Dave's fork since he would be fighting from a distance... in the beginning anyway.
Dave muttered some half-sarcastic gratitude, and Julian considered whether he wanted to sit on the sofa or stand behind it. He ultimately decided that it wasn't going to offer him that much protection from one of those beasts outside, and his feet could really use a rest. He could cast a Magic Missile sitting down as easily as he could standing up, after all.
"Oh my god," said Cooper. "Here it comes."
Tim cautiously leaned toward the door. "I don't hear anything."
Cooper grinned. "No, I was talking about –"
"Cooper!" cried Dave. "Behind you!"
Julian looked at Cooper's rear and found Waxoff sneaking out from behind a purple ottoman, one of his flame hands pointed at Cooper's ass. Waxoff took a deep breath and prepared to pull his flame-thrower move when Cooper let rip the most epic shit-speckled fart Julian had ever witnessed.
The initial spray turned Waxoff brown just nanoseconds before the flame ignited, shooting out a plume of fire, like the breath of a dragon, out of Cooper's asshole.
It lasted at least ten seconds, maybe fifteen. Waxoff melted into a puddle of shit-tainted wax down the sides of a very much un-animated brass candle holder. The bookcase behind him had caught on fire, the dry pages of the old tomes crackling and passing the flames outward and upward.
When it was done, Cooper stood up straight. "I feel so much better now."
Julian, Tim, and Dave just stared in silent awe.
"The fuck's wrong with you guys?" said Cooper, evidently not yet aware that he'd set the library on fire. "Why don't you grow the fuck –"
Garçon flew through the double doors, smashing one in half and knocking the other off its hinges, and straight into Dave. From the state of him, struggling to get back up on his hooves, Julian guessed that he had not entered the library of his own volition.
Dave hurriedly rolled away from the exhausted-but-no-less-terrifyng monster and stood back up.
Bella stomped into the library, her bloodthirsty gaze fixed on Garçon The bloodied yellow scraps hanging from her body were now unrecognizable as having once been a dress.
In all the excitement, nobody remembered to attack either of the wereboar. Julian didn't even know which one he was supposed to prioritize. Garçon looked like he might actually be only a couple of Magic Missiles away from dropping dead, but Bella was clearly the more dangerous of the two... at least until she turned back into a naked woman. No, girl.
"My books!" cried Bella. She ran to the bookshelves, her illegally stunning breasts bouncing with each step.
Julian shielded his eyes and made a run for the exit. "I'm not looking! I'm not looking! I'm not –" He ran into Garçon, sending them both to the floor. "Excuse me." He got back up and started running again, more concerned about not looking at Bella than by not being ripped apart by a wearboar.
When he made it to the double doors, he found that Tim and Dave were also shielding their eyes. Only Cooper was unabashedly gawking at her.
"No fucking way she's sixteen."
"Cooper!" said Julian. "Stop staring!"
"It's cool. She turned back into a pig."
Julian looked. Bella had indeed changed back into a wereboar to deal with another attack from Garçon. She kept him at bay with one kicking hoof while simultaneously throwing as many books as she could save away from the spreading fire.
"Let's go!" whispered Tim.
The four of them crept quietly through the doorway. Even Cooper and Dave's heavy footsteps were drowned out by the roar of the fire. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Ravenus and French Tickler were waiting by the front door.
"Well well, sir," said Ravenus. "I've got a tingly feeling in the cloaca. What have you been getting up to?"
"Nothing!" said Julian. "You're just aroused by your ladyfriend here."
"It's not me, sir. I'm all spent. Need some time to replenish the troops, if you catch my meaning."
Dave grimaced. "Looks like someone's got the hots for a sixteen-year-old pig-woman." It was easy to judge, being the only one wearing boner-concealing armor.
"Ha!" said French Tickler. "Have no fear, Monsieur Elf. Mademoiselle Bella is twenty-three."
Cooper pumped his fist. "I called that shit."
"How do you know how old she is?" Dave challenged the feather duster.
"I was ze one who told her to lie about her age. I thought it might keep her safe from... How you say... ze predator?"
"Shit!" said Cooper. "Is he here, too? How many movies did Mordred rip off at once?"
Julian looked at Ravenus and French Tickler. They did make a cute, if unconventional, couple. He hated to break two lovers apart. And really, how much of a burden could a feather duster be?
"Why don't you come with us?"
Ravenus looked at him with wide eyes. Julian's heart skipped a beat.
French Tickler smiled. "I cannot, monsieur. My place is here, next to my husband, Waxoff."
Julian and Tim exchanged troubled glances.
"We have a complicated relationship, but he is ze love of my life." French Tickler raised a feather to the side of Ravenus's beak. "But you will always have a place here." She placed the tip of the feather on the base of her handle."
"Awesome," said Tim. "Good luck with that. We really need to be going now." |
4d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Chapter 7 | When they had ridden Julian's magical horses far enough away from the house, they slowed down to a trot.
"Are you okay?" Julian asked Ravenus, who was perched on his shoulder.
"Of course I am, sir. Why wouldn't I be?"
"I meant about your lady friend. All that stuff she said back there."
"She couldn't speak Elven, sir. I have no idea what she was on about."
"Oh. It's just that I sensed you getting a little panicky back there when we were parting ways."
"Of course I was, sir. Excuse me for saying so, but I thought you'd gone mad when you invited her to tag along."
"I just thought –"
"That would have thrown off our whole dynamic, wouldn't it?"
Julian shrugged. "I don't know if it would have been that –"
"And can you imagine me being seen in public with her? Me, a raven, and her, a... I don't even know what she is!"
"Alright, already. I got it. I'll run it by you first next time."
Ravenus ruffled his feathers. "I'm in the prime of my life, sir. Far too young to be getting tied down." |
4d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Wight Trash | (Original Publication Date: July 15, 2016)
The tattooed bare-chested half-orc behind the rough wooden desk continued writing on a piece of parchment as Tim, Julian, Dave, and Cooper entered the shipping container-sized office.
"Excuse me," said Tim. "Is this the Cardinian Trash Dump?"
The half-orc continued writing, not even sparing them a glance. "It is."
Tim wasn't expecting much in the way of pleasantries from a garbage man, but some basic acknowledgment would have been nice. He looked at Julian, who had a better temperament to deal with this sort of bullshit.
"Is that really what it's called?" asked Julian. "Trash Dump?"
"What's wrong with that?" said Tim. "It's a place where the city dumps its trash."
"I don't know. Those words just don't sound good together. I feel like it should be abbreviated, or the words should be combined into something catchier, or –"
"Maybe you can pitch some ideas at the next town hall meeting. For now..." Tim slowly and deliberately moved his gaze toward the city employee behind the desk, who was still ignoring the four of them to the best of his ability.
Julian cleared his throat. "We're here about the job."
"Waste retrieval or perimeter control?"
Julian looked to his friends for guidance on how to answer the question, but they had nothing but shrugs to offer.
"We understood this was a mercenary position."
The half-orc stopped writing. "Oh, that job." He scanned them each in turn. He nodded approvingly at Dave, the only one of them decked out in proper armor, but squinted at his leopard-furred forearm. For Julian, draped in a filthy serape, he gave a small snort. He only looked at Cooper long enough to wince and move on. Though they were both half-orcs, Cooper's severely low Charisma score often made for jarring first impressions. When his eyes fell on Tim, a wide toothy grin spread across his face.
It was always the same wherever he went. Tim thought that in a world where halflings are a common race, people wouldn't treat them like the ten-year-old kids they resembled. He was continuously let down in that regard.
"Yeah, that fucking job," said Tim. "So what is it? You need us to rough up some dudes behind on their payments? Go out and collect protection money? Sabotage a rival agency's trash collection cart?"
"Hold on," said Julian. "I don't want to do anything like that."
The half-orc behind the desk looked confused. "Rival agency? Sanitation is controlled by the Cardinian city government. It's a public service."
"Oh," said Tim. "Then what's the problem?"
"No one knows how it started, but this place has become overrun with wights."
"That doesn't sound so bad," said Cooper. "Hell, where we come from, that's a sign of a good neighborhood."
The half-orc squinted at Cooper like he was trying to look directly at the sun. "And where do you come from?"
"Gulfport, Mississippi."
It was too early in the day for this shit. Tim needed a drink. He mustered up what patience he could and looked up at Cooper's stupid face. "He's talking about the undead."
"What, like zombies?"
"Yes, Cooper. Like zombies." Tim turned back to the half-orc behind the desk. "Not a problem, sir. We've dealt with the undead before. We can kill a few wights."
"Whoa!" said Julian. "Wait just a second, Tim, and think about what you're saying. Zombie or not, what sense does it make to discriminate based on race? I mean, would you honestly feel better having your face gnawed off by a Central American or Sub-Saharan African zombie?"
"Goddammit!" said Tim. "Wight. W-I-G-H-T. Okay?"
Cooper hung his big half-orc head and frowned. "Not cool, man. You know I can't spell."
Julian folded his arms. "That's okay. Neither can Tim."
"These are no mindless zombies," said the half-orc. "Wights are far more powerful and dangerous. You would do well to fear and respect them if you wish to survive."
Dave stepped forward. "Sir, I understand that you may have had some unfortunate run-ins with whites in the past. But is it as bad as you're making it out to be? I mean, look at yourself. You don't appear to be missing too many meals, you've got a nice government job, you –"
"For the love of fuck!" cried Tim. "Would all of you please just shut the fuck up for two goddamn minutes?" He turned back to the half-orc. "Please excuse my friends, sir. They're... um... What's the polite word for retarded?"
"Your mother?" suggested Cooper.
Tim ignored him, keeping his attention focused on business. "It's been a while since I looked at the Monster Manual. Can you explain to my friends exactly what a wight is?"
The half-orc nodded solemnly. "In days gone by, the term 'wight' simply meant 'man'."
"Like, before the Civil War?" asked Cooper.
Tim squeezed the handle of his crossbow and glared at Cooper, then turned back to the half-orc behind the desk. "How about just giving us a brief rundown on the differences between zombies and wights?"
"A zombie will simply tear you limb from limb until you die. A wight will turn you into one of their own, which is why we have a problem."
"Cultural assimilation," Julian whispered.
"Okay, that's it." Tim turned around and held up his crossbow, but didn't point it at anyone just yet. "I swear to god. The next person who speaks is getting shot in the face."
"You gentlemen seem well qualified for the task," said the half-orc. "My name's Mung. It's a pleasure to meet you." From behind his desk, he produced a large square of folded burlap cloth. "This is for the heads."
"You want us to put their heads in a bag?" asked Julian.
"Proof of kill. You collect five silver pieces per head upon your return."
Cooper snorted. "We're getting paid loose change for head. Finally we can know what it feels like to be Dave's mom."
Tim and Julian shared a chuckle. Even Mung joined in.
Dave turned red in the face. "Your mother's so –"
The office door swung open, sparing Dave the embarrassment of an almost certain terrible retort.
Two human men stood in the doorway. One wore armor that looked like it was composed of pieces fished out of this very junkyard. His thick brown mustache poked out of both sides of the mask of his cylindrical helmet. He looked like the Tin Man in an underfunded middle school production of The Wizard of Oz, except he wielded a war hammer in one hand and a bargain-basement coaster of a holy symbol in the other.
His companion wore a simple leather tunic, though it was perhaps a size too small. His broad muscly body threatened the stitching at the seams. The only possession he carried on his person was a long wooden spear with a steel head full of barbed serrations.
The armored man took a step into the already crowded office. He smelled like canned meat. "I, Morgan Flynn, Cleric of Dionys, Defender of Truth, Harbinger of Justice, and my companion, Balroth Stonefist, answer the city's call to arms!"
"I'm confused," said Cooper. "Did you just introduce, like, six guys? Or –"
"Silence, cretin!"
Mung cleared his throat. "Will you all be working together, or would you prefer to act as two separate parties?"
"We do the gods' work!" said Morgan. "We did not come here to babysit women and children."
That was all Tim could stand. "Who the fuck are you calling women and –"
"Enough!" said Mung, slamming a fist on his desk. "I have work to do. Common sense dictates that you would be wiser to work together, but –"
When Tim glared over at Morgan, Morgan was making a thumbs-up gesture over his crotch, with his thumb pointed toward Tim. It was a bizarre and unfamiliar gesture to Tim, but one that he could only interpret as disrespectful.
Tim pointed at Morgan. "I will end you, motherfucker! I will piss on your fucking corpse!"
"Ahem," said Mung. His fake throat-clearing was not excessively loud, but he had a certain presence that made him difficult to ignore. "As I was saying. If pride and petty squabbles mean more to you than survival, so be it." He tossed another folded square of burlap to Morgan's silent henchman. "But I suggest you all direct your hostility toward the wights."
Julian shook his head. "That sort of thinking doesn't lead to progress."
Mung slid open a large door opposite the entrance, revealing a five-foot by ten-foot cage of thick steel bars. Beyond the cage was a stadium-sized walled enclosure which Tim found to be cleaner than he'd expected for a place meant to contain all of the garbage of a city the size of Cardinia. There were piles of refuse scattered here and there on the barren ground, but not nearly as much as Tim thought there should be. The air didn't smell too bad either, aside from Cooper's contributions. Maybe Cardinians were big into recycling.
"Do not open the gate on the far side until after I've closed this gate." Mung pulled up the near gate by a horizontal bar attached to it. Smoothly, the gate slid open, revealing the sharp points on the bottom ends of the vertical bars, which would be buried a good six inches when the gate closed. "Everybody in."
Cooper was the first to walk into the cage, followed by Dave, then Julian. Tim took his group's rear, but was followed into the increasingly crowded cage by Morgan Flynn and Balroth Stonefist. Balroth's spear was too long to fit in the cage, so he had to poke the top of it through the bars of the roof.
They were all stuffed in so tightly when Mung pulled the gate back down that it was difficult to move. If wights were to reach through the bars and attack them right now, they'd truly be fucked.
Tim put his small halfling stature and his rogue stealthiness to good use by tying Morgan's boot laces together.
"What are you waiting for?" said Morgan. "Open the gate already!"
"I can't figure out how the latch works," said Cooper.
Dave grunted, and his ass was suddenly in Tim's face. "Let me try. Unnnnngggg... shit. I can't reach it from this angle."
Tim ducked down and squirmed his way through a forest of legs until he reached the gate on the far side. "Do I have to do everything for you guys?"
"What the hell is that?" cried Julian.
Tim poked his head between Julian's legs and looked outside the cage. A monster far more grotesque than his vague recollection of the Monster Manual illustration had prepared him for scuttled toward the cage. The pointy-toothed grinning freakshow appeared to have once been human, judging by the scraps of rotted clothing hanging from its twisted limbs. Yellow-grey skin stretched tight around its face, topped by a filthy crop of Don King-style hair.
"Shit," said Tim. "It's a wight."
"Good luck, gentlemen," said Mung as he slid the office door closed behind the gate.
Dave and Cooper were frantically arguing at the gate on the other side. Tim crawled over to see what the holdup was.
"Pull up on the handle!"
"I'm trying! It's stuck."
"Then try pushing down."
"It won't budge."
Tim squeezed himself upright against the gate bars until his head met something hard and inflexible. "Ow. Fuck, that hurt." He re-positioned himself with the side of his face pressed against Dave's ass, which appeared to be everywhere at once, to get a better look at what he'd hit his head on. It was the gate handle. "You dumb bastards. You're on the side with the hinges!" He reached out and gave the handle a tug, spilling himself, Dave, and Cooper outside of the cage.
Morgan pressed his back against the opposite side of the cage as the wight reached both hands ind its long pointed tongue through the bars. Morgan fumbled with his holy symbol while Balroth struggled to get his spear in fighting position.
"Know the power of Dionys and flee, foul creature!"
Tim didn't know if Morgan had rolled a piss-poor turning check, or if he was just a shitty cleric, but the wight now appeared to be grabbing at the holy symbol, managing to graze it with one finger.
"How dare you defile this... this... bwaaaaahhh!" Morgan grabbed the wight's wrist with one hand, pressed it back against the bars, and smashed the elbow with his hammer.
Balroth, by this time, had maneuvered the base of his spear shaft through the bars on the side of the cage opposite the wight and pulled the head in through the roof bars. He plunged the head deep into the wight's chest. The wight screamed as it stumbled backward, leaving behind what Tim guessed were tendrils of lung hanging from the barbed spearhead.
It's scream turned to a gurgle as brown blood spilled out of its mouth, covering its chin and mingling with the blood flowing out of its chest wound. Showing more intelligence than a zombie, it chose not to re-engage the people in the cage, but rather focused its wild eyes, burning with icy blue hatred, on Tim.
Tim shivered as the creature's gaze met his own. It only had time to take a single step in his direction before Tim pulled the trigger of his crossbow. His hands were shaky, and he barely managed to hit the creature in the upper part of its already-damaged arm.
The wight stopped screaming and snarling, and collapsed like a sack of moldy fruit. It must have been down to its last Hit Point.
Tim grinned at Morgan. "Guess that's a kill for us."
"Back away, halfling!" said Balroth, shifting the gore-coated spearhead two inches in Tim's direction, but he was unable to point it directly at him because of the bars.
"So Fabio can talk after all." Tim pulled his bolt out of the dead creature's arm. It barely even had any blood on it. He doubted he had ever seen so superficial a wound. He looked back up at Balroth. "This is our kill. If you want the head, you can come and take it from us."
Balroth was trembling with anger, which impeded his efforts to remove his spear from between the cage bars. "I shall take all of your heads in the service of Dionys!"
"Calm yourself, Balroth," said Morgan. "Let the fools have their ill-gotten victory. I've a feeling we'll be collecting their heads before long." He sneered at Tim. "You and your friends would do well to stay out of our way."
Tim placed his bolt over his crotch and wiggled it at Morgan and Balroth as they exited the cage and walked away in search of more undead prey.
"What a dick," said Cooper.
Ravenus peeked out from under Julian's serape. "What is that wonderful smell? Has someone prepared breakfast?"
Now that undeath was no longer binding the wight's body together, the poor bastard really started to reek.
"Well well," said Tim. "Look who finally decided to wake up."
Ravenus looked at him blankly.
Tim knew the bird couldn't understand anyone but Julian unless they spoke with a British accent, but Tim was only concerned with Julian understanding him. "He's getting fat."
Julian stroked Ravenus's feathers. "I know."
"If you keep letting him sleep until he smells food, he's going to be too fat to fly."
Ravenus cleared his throat. "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt. But does anyone else want the eyes?"
Tim shook his head. "They're all yours."
"No," said Julian. "We need its head in-tact." He turned his head away from his familiar. "And you need some exercise."
Even Tim's callous heart was saddened to see Julian denying his familiar its favorite thing in the world. "I'm not saying you have to start starving him right out of the gate. Let him eat the eyes. I think the wight's head will still be plenty recognizable as such."
Julian looked down at the horrifying remains of the dead creature at their feet. "But what if he gets White Disease or whatever? I don't want him turning into a seagull."
"Don't worry," said Tim. "Everything you just said is... I don't even have the words for how stupid it was."
"Okay, Ravenus," said Julian. "Make it quick."
The wight's eyes had shriveled down to raisins by the time Ravenus finally got to eat them. Tim looked away and was relieved that they didn't make that horrible slurping sound. They probably just snapped right off the rapidly decaying optic nerves.
"Not much of a meal," said Ravenus. "But I rather enjoyed the texture. More chewy than usual, but lacking that satisfying juicy burst."
Dave looked back at the wight, winced, and turned away again.
That was good enough for Tim. He didn't look back. "Cooper, can you chop that thing's head off and kick it into the bag?"
"Sure thing."
*THWONG*
That might have been a chop, but it sounded too far away, and more like the release of a large amount of tension than an axe chopping through a neck.
"The fuck was –"
Dave collapsed under a pile of garbage-studded excrement about the size of a small car, which had just fallen straight out of the sky.
"Dave!" cried Tim. "Are you okay?" The shitpile landed with a splatter, so parts of Dave were visible through the top, meaning it wasn't yet necessary for Tim to go digging for him.
Dave struggled to roll himself over and rise to a sitting position. "I think so." He spit some shit out of his mouth. "What just happened?"
Cooper looked up at the sky. "I think God just took a dump on you."
Tim laughed.
Julian cupped his hands over his mouth and lowered his voice. "Do you believe in me now, Dave?"
"Everything's a big joke to you guys," said Dave, wiping shit out of his beard. "Look at me. I almost get killed by a flying ball of shit. Do you wonder how that might have happened? No. Try to think of ways we might avoid getting killed by flying shitballs in the future? Of course not. Your first instinct is always to laugh at Dave. Ha ha ha, Dave's covered in shit again. Ha ha ha, Dave got kicked by a horse again. Ha ha ha, Dave–" His eyes widened as a blob of transparent jelly slopped over his mouth and nose.
"Ha ha ha," said Cooper. "Dave's coughing up splooge again."
Tim's eyes adjusted. The jelly blob was attached to a jelly arm, which was pulling Dave backward into some giant wall of jelly. The splattered shit on the ground dissolved into the slowly-approaching wall.
As Tim stepped back, he got a view of the whole thing. It was at least ten feet tall, and just as wide. A perfect cube of living digestive slime, with Dave's unconscious or dead body suspended in the middle of it.
"Gelatinous cube!" cried Tim. He had no idea these things were so big.
"That's really what it's called?" asked Julian. "Who's in charge of naming stuff in this game?"
"Would you shut up and – FUCK!" Tim tumbled out of the way as a pseudopod shot out of the cube at him. He caught it with one hand as it slowly retracted, drew a dagger with his other hand, and sliced off the appendage. Even as it melted into lifeless jelly, Tim felt the pins and needles of numbness in his palm and fingers. At least Dave probably wasn't feeling any pain.
"FUCK YOU, JIZZBOX!" said Cooper, tearing into the cube with his axe.
The gelatinous cube shot four pseudopods at Cooper's face, chest, leg, and crotch.
"Flgbbghffgb!" said Cooper as his whole body was pulled into the cube. Poor Cooper must have made his Saving Throw vs. paralysis, because he continued to struggle once inside.
The cube stopped advancing. It waved pseudopods lazily at Tim and Julian, but didn't lash out like before.
"Cooper!" said Julian, cautiously jabbing at the cube with his quarterstaff. "What do we do?"
"You're a sorcerer, fuckwit!" said Tim. "Use magic!"
Julian held his staff in the air with one hand and thrust his other hand toward the cube. "Magic Missile!"
Two bolts of energy flew out of Julian's palm, causing two sections of the cube to burst like giant zits. The cube reformed into its proper shape almost immediately, but Tim thought it looked smaller than before. And it was definitely slower. Maybe Cooper was too gross to digest... or too big.
"Julian!" said Tim. "Summon a horse!"
"You want to just ditch them?" Julian sounded shocked.
"No. Just summon the biggest goddamn horse you can! Hurry up!"
Julian pointed at the ground. "Horse!" A majestic black steed, clearly bred for the battlefield, appeared next to him. "Now what?"
"Feed it to the cube."
"What?"
A pseudopod wrapped around Tim's leg and started dragging him in. "Do it!" he cried, dodging another blob of slime aimed at his face.
"Horse, go that way!" Julian commanded. The horse followed its master's orders, charging directly into the cube, where it was completely engulfed in a matter of seconds. It had apparently also made its Saving Throw, as it joined Cooper in thrashing around inside the cube.
Tim cut himself free, but he could feel a burning sensation on his leg where his skin had made contact with the slime. Dave and Cooper didn't have much time.
"Great," said Julian. "It ate my horse. Now what?"
"It's using most of its power to digest," said Tim. "Hit it with everything you've got." He hacked at it with his dagger, meeting little resistance.
"Flbbm... rgggbly... ubgggbbly!" said Cooper from within the cube. Tim didn't have to understand him to know he was saying, "I'm really angry!" He had invoked his Barbarian Rage.
The gelatinous cube trembled as Cooper's muscles grew inside it. Large cloudy bubbles formed in the jelly near his ass. He swung his axe around is if through water, and an entire upper corner of the cube slid off, melting into a puddle on the ground.
Cooper vomited slime as his head broke free from the surface. After a deep breath, he shouted, "FREEEEDOOOOOM!"
He tore at what remained of the cube with his claws and axe, not looking in the least bit concerned that he was still being digested from the waist down.
"Get Dave!" shouted Tim.
There was something like understanding in Cooper's wild red eyes. His erratic gaze darted back and forth until it locked onto Dave, still floating helplessly in the clear goo. "GET DAVE!" He raised his axe over his head with both hands.
"No!" said Tim. "Rescue Dave!"
"OH!" Cooper scooped up three pseudopods that had latched onto his chest and ripped them out of the cube. He plunged his other arm into the slime until he reached Dave. "Unnnnnnnnggggggggg!" Dave came out like a newborn calf, only more bloody, slimy, and generally disgusting.
Having done what was asked of him, Cooper got back to the rage-fueled task of beating the shit out of his enemy. He didn't even bother with his axe. He just dove into what was left of the cube headfirst and used his bare hands to tear it apart from the inside.
*SHLOP SHLOP SHLOP*
Julian beat the shrinking cube with his staff until it finally lost its quasi-solid form and melted into a spreading pool of lifeless ooze.
His horse was bald and bleeding in places, but dammit it was still standing. Tim smiled at Julian. Good for – Oh shit, Dave!
Dave lay on his back, covered in slime. His skin was patchy and blistering with second-degree acid burns. The leopard fur on his forearm had completely dissolved, revealing a grey band of arm-skin beneath. He didn't appear to be breathing.
Tim wiped as much slime off Dave's breastplate as he could before putting his ear to it.
"Jesus Christ," said Cooper, having come out of his rage. He, too, was covered from head to toe in slime. "I feel like Dave's mom at the end of a shift."
Julian bonked Cooper on the head with his quarterstaff. "Dude. Not a good time."
"Oh, shit. Sorry. Is he all right?"
Tim pressed his ear harder against the breastplate, straining to hear a heartbeat. "If you two would shut the fuck up for a second, I'll let you –" There it was. It was faint, but it was definitely there. "He's alive! He's going to pull –"
*BLEEGGGGGGHHHHHH*
Tim caught a gushing faceful of Dave's slime vomit.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" cried Dave. "IT HURTS! IT HURTS! OH MY GOD IT HURTS!"
Tim spit out slime and chunks of whatever Dave had last eaten. "Heal yourself, stupid."
Dave slapped both palms on top of his head. "I heal me!" He sighed ecstatically as his burns faded. When it was done he sat up and frowned at the fresh leopard fur which had grown back on his forearm. "Damn. I was hoping I'd finally gotten rid of that."
Cooper pointed a finger at Dave. "I could use some of that too."
Dave touched Cooper's finger. "I heal thee."
Cooper let out a fart of relief as Dave's healing magic coursed through him.
Julian cleared his throat and glanced at his partially digested magical horse.
"Forget about it," said Dave. "We've been through this."
"He saved your life. Look at him. He's suffering."
*THWONG*
There was that sound again. What the hell was that?
"Cooper saved my life," said Dave. "And if your stupid horse is suffering so much, just put it out of its –"
"Look out!" cried Tim, having spotted the flying glob of refuse hurtling out of the sky toward them.
"SHIT!" cried Dave, Julian, and Cooper as they dove out of the way.
When Tim heard the splat, he reasoned it was safe to look. All that was left of Julian's Mount spell was a horse-sized interruption in the new pile of filth splattered on the ground.
Tim looked up at the sky, tracing the trajectory of the shitpile. "They're catapulting the garbage over the walls. Probably so they don't have to deal with the wights."
"This is bullshit," said Julian. "We signed up to fight Whitey."
"Wights."
"Nobody told us anything about having to dodge flying piles of shit or avoid being eaten by gelatinous lubes."
"Cubes."
"Whatever. This sucks."
"It's actually kind of smart when you think about it," said Tim. "The gelatinous cubes eat the garbage. It's a perfect waste disposal system."
Julian kicked a blob of soiled jelly. "They could have at least warned us. Shown us a training video or something."
"That's actually pretty clever too," said Dave. "What kind of person do you think signs up for this kind of high-risk shit-pay job?"
"Violent sociopaths with nothing to lose?" asked Tim.
"Exactly. People who contribute absolutely nothing to society. In other words, –"
"Us," said Cooper.
Dave shrugged. "I was talking about PCs in general, but yeah."
"PCs?" asked Julian. "You mean, as opposed to Macs?"
"Jesus, Julian," said Tim. "How long have you been in this game. Player Characters, like all of us, as opposed to NPCs, like the bakers and farmers and shit who have families here and a vested interest in maintaining an orderly society."
"I thought they didn't realize they were in a game."
"They don't. We're not PCs to them. We're just narcissistic assholes who society would be better off without."
Julian frowned. "I thought we were supposed to be heroes."
Tim gave Julian a sad smile. "When's the last time any of us did anything heroic?"
"So they want us to die?"
"They don't care whether we die or not," said Dave. "It's win-win for them. If we kill more than four wights before we turn into wights ourselves, there's a net decrease in the total number of wights, and the city doesn't have to pay us anything."
"And there's four more fuckwits off the streets," added Tim. "Shit. I hate it when Dave's right about something."
Julian tugged on his long elf ears. "What about Morgan and Balroth? Are they PCs too?"
"I don't think so. They're probably just run-of-the-mill assholes."
"So what do we do now?"
"We do our job, and hope they pay us instead of shoot us when we're done." Tim looked westward at the sun beginning to sink in the sky. "We'd better take out as many as we can before it gets dark." He looked down at their only kill so far. Its head was still connected. "Dammit, Cooper. Would you please chop this thing's head off so we can get moving."
"Screw you, dude," said Cooper. "I got distracted."
Tim turned away and listened for the chop. When it came, it was immediately followed by a loud squawk.
"Ravenus!" said Julian.
When Tim looked at the dead wight again, its head was separated from the body, but the rotted clothes over the torso were convulsing like the creature had just snorted a line of powdered rocket fuel.
Ravenus backed out from under the clothes and glared up at Cooper, insofar as a bird is able to glare. "What the devil do you think you're doing? You scared the willies out of me!"
Cooper didn't understand the Elven language, but he must have been able to glean enough from the context. "I didn't see you, asshole. What the fuck were you hiding under there for?"
Julian put his hands on his hips. "Have you been eating this whole time?"
Ravenus lowered his head. "I'm sorry, sir. The underarm skin was thin and crispy, not unlike those 'nachos' you so enjoy."
"Great. Now I'll never be able to eat nachos again."
*THWONG*
"Shit!" cried Tim. He looked up and quickly spotted a third ball of shit-garbage sailing in their direction. "Run!"
Dave, Cooper, Julian, and Ravenus scattered like cockroaches when the light comes on. Tim, already having an eye on the trajectory, merely jogged backwards a safe distance until the catapult's payload landed squarely on the dead wight. The severed head still lay next to the body, only visible now as a conspicuous lump of shit.
"Fuck," said Tim.
Cooper walked back and frowned down at the head. "This is more shit than head now. I'm not sure it's worth five silver pieces to carry it around all day."
Julian smiled at him. "You're thinking about it wrong. What's it worth to you to be able to hand that guy who sent us in here a big ball of shit and demand that he pay us for it?"
Cooper nodded. "That makes it worth it." He opened the burlap sack and kicked the head inside.
Tim walked over close to Julian. "Now that's how you use the Diplomacy skill."
Over the next couple of hours, they managed to add five more wight heads to their collection. Tim tried to think up ways to slaughter them more safely and efficiently, but nothing he thought of seemed like it would work better than ganging up on them one at a time and straight-up beating the shit out of them until they stopped moving.
When the sun got low on the horizon, Tim looked in the sack and frowned. "Thirty silver pieces isn't much for a day's work."
"It's not so bad," said Julian. "That's the going rate for betraying saviors."
"Aren't you supposed to be Jewish?"
"I read."
Tim looked back at the cage where they'd entered. Still no sign of Morgan and Balroth. "If we want to keep fighting, we'll need to light up a torch. I can't see in the dark like the rest of you."
"There's some light over there," said Dave.
Tim looked in the direction Dave had indicated. In the daylight, it had looked like nothing but more featureless barren ground. But now that it had grown dark enough, Tim could make out the faint glow of firelight coming from what looked like a wide pit. "What the hell is that?"
Dave shrugged. "Maybe it's where they burn the trash."
"They don't burn the trash," said Julian. "They let the slime cubes eat it."
"Then maybe it's where they used to burn the trash before someone thought up the gelatinous cube idea." He stroked his freshly gelled beard. "But then, why would it still be burning?"
"Probably a magic, eternally-burning fire," said Julian. "I don't imagine that's too difficult a spell."
Tim scanned his surroundings, searching for any flicker of torch or lantern light, but finding none. "Those two assholes are probably over there. They're both human, and can't see in the dark any better than I can."
Cooper narrowed his eyes at Tim. "You look like you've got a terrible idea brewing."
Tim nodded and grinned. "Oh, I do."
"Are you thinking of pushing those guys into the fire pit?" asked Julian.
"What? No. Why would you even... Okay, now I'm thinking of that. But that's just harmless fantasy. My original plan is much more practical and much less murdery."
Dave sighed. "Okay. Let's hear it."
"I'm going to lift their sack."
Cooper scratched his armpit thoughtfully. "You want to check out their taint?"
Tim winced. "What? Ew. No. I meant I'm going to pinch their wight heads."
Cooper grimaced. "That's even worse. What are you, a fucking dermatologist?"
"Goddammit, Cooper! I'm going to steal the bag in which they keep the severed heads of the wights they've killed. Is that fucking clear enough for you?"
"Would it have killed you to say that the first time?"
"They're not going to just hand over their sack," said Dave. "If we try to take it, they're definitely going to put up a fight."
"I didn't say we're going to steal it," said Tim. "I said I'm going to steal it. By the time they realize it's missing, I'll be long gone."
"And what are we supposed to do?"
"Just stay conspicuous. Light up four torches so that, from a distance, it looks like we're all together. I'll sneak off alone and snatch the bag while they're fighting a wight."
"That sounds risky," said Julian. "What if you get swallowed by a Jell-O monster? We won't even be able to hear you call for help."
"I'll take Ravenus with me."
Julian bit his lower lip. It was clear that his concern for the bird was far greater than his concern for Tim. "Okay." He pulled back one side of his serape, and Ravenus flew up to perch atop his quarterstaff. "You're going to go with Tim on a little mission, okay?"
"Very good, sir," said Ravenus. "I'm happy to serve however I may."
"You stay in the air. If he gets into trouble, you come back and tell us. Do not try to help him on your own. Do you understand?"
"Absolutely, sir."
Tim folded his arms. "Your concern is touching. Can we go now?"
Julian looked up at Ravenus, then down at Tim. "Be careful."
Ravenus flew down and tried to land on Tim's shoulder, but there wasn't enough room. The goddamn bird seemed almost as big as him up close. He finally gave up and landed on the ground.
Tim spoke in a British accent so the bird could understand him. "I'm going to sneak from trash pile to trash pile." He pointed to a nearby pile. "I'll move in a clockwise pattern around the circumference of the fire pit. You take to the sky. If you see those two guys we met earlier, come and find me."
"Right-O!" said Ravenus. He flapped his way up into the darkening sky.
Tim focused on Stealth as he dashed toward his first objective. It felt good to be doing something rogue-ish. There was a long list of things he and his friends were terrible at, and 'covert operations' was at the top of it. Any situation requiring even a modicum of subtlety would be ruined with a trumpeting fart, or a screaming horse, or Dave's fat ass falling down some stairs.
But this was what Tim's character was built for. High Dexterity. Maxed out ranks in Stealth. He was but a whisper in the breeze. A flickering shadow in—
"Fuck!" he managed to say before his face hit the dirt. Looking back to see what he'd tripped on, he found a giant bone sticking out of the dirt. Who knows what kind of prehistoric monstrosity it had once belonged to. "I'm glad you're dead, asshole."
Fortunately, he had planted his face right next to the garbage pile he'd been heading toward. Mostly scrap metal and smaller animal bones, it looked as though a gelatinous cube had sucked it dry of all organic matter some time ago.
Tim peered into the fading light to find his next objective. The fire from the pit was faintly reflected in metal scraps from two trash piles at the edge of his view. Either one would do. Just to be on the safe side, he squinted, trying to detect any sign of a gelatinous cube in his path, be it a particularly flat path of dirt, a trail of slime, a shimmer in the—
"Looking for me, sir?"
"Jesus!" Tim looked up and found Ravenus perched on a bent iron bar. "What the hell are you doing here? You're supposed to be scouting for those two assholes."
"I've found them, sir," said Ravenus. "They're hiding just beyond that rubbish heap over there." He nodded in the direction Tim had been just about to run to.
"Shit. Which one?"
"The one on the right, sir."
Maybe that was a lucky break. If Tim was able to reach the pile on the left without being detected, the close proximity would give him an advantage when it came time to make his move. "Good work, Ravenus."
Tim scanned his intended path one more time for dinosaur bones, or rocks, or holes, or anything else that might trip him up. It looked clear.
After a deep breath, he bolted out from behind his cover, barely touching the ground as he ran on his toes. He slowed down as he reached his target, not completely trusting that Ravenus knew his right from his left.
"But what are they doing?" Morgan's voice came from the far side of the right-side garbage pile.
Tim ducked behind the left-side pile and concentrated on their conversation while he scanned for danger.
"It looks like they're just standing there," said Balroth. "Why is the half-orc holding two torches. Can half-orcs not see perfectly well in the dark?"
Morgan laughed like a snarling cat. "He's probably too stupid to realize that. I wonder where the little one's run off to."
Right here, motherfucker.
"His companions likely grew weary of his big mouth and murdered him."
Dude, I'm literally right here, asshole.
"As stupid and impulsive as he is, I would guess he's gotten himself lost," said Morgan. "The others are holding up torches because halflings can't see in the dark. Should we acquire his head, I may keep it in a jar."
That sick twisted fuck. Tim glanced down at his crossbow and toyed with the idea of shooting them each in the junk and running like a motherfucker, but he doubted he'd get very far. Then he spotted what he'd been looking for all along. Near a trash pile at the outer edge of his vision, a wight trudged aimlessly away from the fire pit.
Tim searched the garbage pile next to him for something to throw. He needed something small enough to grip in one hand, but with a bit of weight to it. He settled on the skull of what was either a child or a halfling, feeling a little bad that he couldn't tell the difference. But he couldn't have asked for a better projectile. With a thumb through one of the eye-holes, it was as if it were made to be thrown.
"Alas, poor Yorick," Tim whispered as he hurled the skull halfway between the wight and the two assholes. "Get thee to a nunnery!"
The wight stopped dead in its tracks and looked in the direction of the sound.
"What's that?" said Morgan.
The wight let out a howl like a velociraptor who'd just stepped on a Lego.
"It's one of them!" said Balroth.
"Behold the power of Dionys, wretched creature!"
The wight hissed, its eyes filled with terror. It turned and fled into the darkness.
Balroth sighed. "Must you do that every time?"
"I didn't hear you complaining when the wight dropped dead instantly."
"That happened once."
"Quit your moaning," said Morgan. "We're doing the gods' work. Now hurry up. It's getting away."
As soon as Tim heard their footsteps, he hurried the other way around his garbage pile and darted to the one they had been hiding behind. Just as he'd hoped, their burlap sack-o-heads was just sitting there unattended. He estimated it to have at least twice the number of heads that he and his friends had collected.
"Well done, gentlemen," murmured Tim. "And thank you."
The bag was heavier than he'd expected, forcing Tim to drag it on the ground. Unable to rely upon Stealth, he had to instead rely upon the wight keeping Morgan and Balroth busy for a while.
"Ravenus!" Tim grunted as he dragged.
"Right here, sir." Ravenus was flying in tight circles over Tim's head. He flew down and landed on the bag.
"Go tell Cooper to get over here and help me. And tell the others to put out their torches and start moving counter-clockwise around the fire pit. We'll catch up to them."
"I'm afraid Cooper and I don't communicate very well."
"Then tell Julian to tell Cooper, dipshit. This isn't that complicated."
Ravenus ruffled his feathers. "I don't appreciate being talked to that way."
Tim sighed. "I'm really sorry. Okay?"
"Okay. Apology accepted."
"Great. Now get your fat ass in the air and go."
Ravenus dug his talons deep into the burlap. "I... have... a... cloaca!"
"Jesus Christ, Ravenus. Would you please get your fat-ass cloaca in the air and go?"
"Hmph!" said Ravenus, flapping off into the darkness.
Tim felt sweat running down both sides of his face as he dragged the sack. He was exhausted, but running on spite. "Stupid fucking bird thinks I'm going to apologize for –" A moist glob of something landed on his head. "The fuck?"
"My cloaca sends its regards, sir." Ravenus's voice was headed in the direction of his friends.
"Why you son of a..." Tim dropped the bag and aimed his crossbow at the night sky. He couldn't see Ravenus, but he pulled the trigger anyway.
"OW!" cried Cooper's faint voice a couple of seconds later.
Oops. Natural 1. Tim grabbed the lip of the bag again and started dragging.
A few minutes later, his friends' torches all went out. It was full dark now. If any wights or gelatinous cubes attacked him, he wouldn't know it until they were right on top of him. Knowing this, Tim was more comfortable in the dark than fearful of it. There were only two creatures out there who would actively be seeking him when they discovered their missing bag, and neither of them could see in the dark any better than he could.
"Tim!" Cooper called out.
Tim looked toward the fire pit and found Cooper's silhouette facing him. He dropped the bag and placed a finger over his mouth as severely as he could.
Tiny lights shone from his left. Lamp lights. Shit.
"Goddammit, Cooper!"
Cooper jogged toward Tim, and Tim dragged the bag to close as much of the distance between them as possible.
"Damn," said Cooper when he reached Tim. "They've got a shit-ton of heads."
"They'll have two more if we don't high-tail it out of here. Pick me up and let's go."
Cooper held the sack of heads over his right shoulder and Tim under his left arm. The ride was turbulent and the stench nearly unbearable, not entirely unlike traveling by bus.
"Over here!" said Dave after what seemed like an eternity of nauseous bouncing.
Cooper dropped Tim and the bag.
"Nice haul," said Julian. "They must have a good system worked out. There's half of them as there are of us, and it looks like they have at least twice as many heads. Mung was right. We should have worked together. We might have cleaned this whole place up and learned one or two things about strategy in the meantime."
"Mung can eat my ass," said Tim. He peered back in the direction they had just come from. The lamp lights were farther away than they'd been before, but not as far as they should be at the rate Cooper was running. Morgan and Balroth were slower, but still headed in their direction. "We have to move the heads from their bag to ours, then throw their bag in the fire."
Cooper snorted, looking down at one of the heads which had rolled out of the bag. "Someone drew a dick on that one."
Tim looked at the head. There did indeed appear to be a phallus on its forehead, though it was burned into the taut, decayed skin rather than drawn on. "That's weird. Who would burn a dick into someone's forehead? I mean, besides us?"
"That's the symbol of Dionys," said Dave. "I noticed the same image on Morgan's holy symbol."
"Damn it!" said Tim. "They're marking their bounties in case someone tries to steal them."
Cooper frowned. "What a couple of assholes."
"Can you rub it off?" asked Julian.
"No. It's too deep, probably seared right into the skull." Tim lifted the lip of the bag to peek in at the rest of the heads. "They're all like that."
Julian squinted out at the approaching lamp lights. "What are we going to do? Give them back?"
"Fuck that," said Tim. He kicked the one head back into the bag and looked up at Cooper. "Chuck it into the fire pit and we'll pretend we never saw it."
Julian and Dave both appeared to have objections on the tips of their tongues, but neither of them spoke any aloud.
Cooper grabbed the top of the sack, swung it around his head once, and hurled it deep into the middle of the fire pit.
"OOMF!" cried a voice from the bottom of the pit.
Julian looked at the rest of them. "Did you guys just hear –"
"Yeah, I fucking heard it," said Tim. "Who the hell is down there?"
Dave stood on the edge of the fire pit. "Tim, give me your rope."
Tim's curiosity was piqued enough for him to grant Dave's request without question. He pulled the rope out of his backpack and handed it over.
Dave held the coil in one hand while he fed the rope, one loop at a time, into the pit.
"Are you trying to rescue him?" asked Cooper.
"No," said Dave, continuing to feed the rope down. "I have a theory. I suspect that Julian was right about this being a magical fire, but I think it's all magic and no fire."
"Jesus, Dave," said Tim. "You're managing to make both magic and fire boring as shit. Just get to the point, will you?"
"It's simple. If the rope doesn't burn, then the fire is merely an ill– SHIT!"
Before anyone had time to react, the coil tightened around Dave's hand, and he was pulled into the pit, disappearing into the flames. The sound of his armor crashing into dirt came a second and a half later. His voice rose above the flames. "Ow."
"Holy shit!" said Julian. "Dave's on fire! What do we do?"
"Take it easy," said Tim. "He's fine. People on fire don't say 'Ow' or 'Oomf'. That's what he was just trying to tell us. The fire is an illusion."
"Well something just yanked him into the pit."
Tim nodded. "That's true." He looked down into the pit. "Dave? You okay?"
"Stay back, foul beast!" said Dave. "The power of... uh... my holy symbol compels you!"
"I guess probably not then." Tim let himself hang from the edge of the pit and carefully slid down the steep, but not completely vertical wall. Sliding into the fire, he was relieved at the feeling of not being burned alive.
Now that the illusion was successfully challenged, Tim found he could see through the fire just fine. He could still see that it was there, but now it looked more like just a semi-transparent representation of fire. Other things – real things – were plainly visible, such as Dave holding out his holy symbol, and the wight crouched down and cowering before it at the base of the wall.
"You turned the undead," said Tim. "Way to go."
"Thanks," said Dave. "Now what do we do with it?"
Tim called up to Cooper and Julian, who he was surprised he could see almost clearly standing at the edge of the pit. "It's safe, guys. Come on down."
Julian slid down the side, not quite so gracefully as Tim had, with Ravenus flapping down behind him.
"Cannonball!" shouted Cooper, grabbing his knees as he jumped into the pit.
The wight's bones crunched under Cooper's considerable weight. Blood and guts splattered out like a popped meat balloon.
Tim shook his head. "I guess that answers the wight question."
"Are you okay, Cooper?" asked Julian.
Cooper stood up and looked at the dead pile of bones, dust and suddenly rotting meat beneath him. "Lucky he was there to break my fall. In retrospect, that was kind of a dumb thing to do."
"Just chop its head off and put it in the..." Tim looked at Cooper, then at Julian. "Did you guys leave the bag up there?"
Julian looked up at the edge of the pit, then back down at Tim. "We were in a hurry. We thought Dave was –"
"You there!" said a voice like a man's whose balls had just been slammed in a car door.
Tim turned around. He'd been so preoccupied with their immediate situation that he hadn't yet scoped out the rest of this pit. Standing next to an altar in the middle of the pit was a bald man with a black, pointed goatee. On his left arm he wore a small round shield, adorned with a red skeletal hand against a black background.
The shield immediately struck Tim as out of place, as it was the only form of physical armor he wore. His black and red robes appeared to have been hastily designed to match is shield by an inexperienced apprentice tailor. Where the shield's hand was menacing and kind of badass, the hands on the robes looked like they had been painted on the same way a child draws their first Thanksgiving turkey.
"Dude," said Dave. "It's the guy from Manos: The Hands of Fate!"
"Silence, dwarf!" said the mysterious trash pit dweller, spreading the arms of his robes out dramatically, causing pages of the large book on his altar to turn. "Speak not of my hands!"
Tim wouldn't have noticed if the guy hadn't brought it up, but he did have tiny, delicate hands. Out of the corner of his eye, Tim also noticed Julian whispering something to Ravenus, once again tucked under his serape.
"I'm sorry, sir," said Dave. He lifted up his own left arm. "I've got this weird leopard fur thing going on, so don't feel –"
"I said silence!" said the strange man, pounding his little fist on the table. He looked down behind the altar. "No, not you. I'm sorry. Did Daddy scare you? Come on up here." He crouched down behind the altar.
"Go! Now!" whispered Julian. Ravenus sprang out of his chest like a black feathered xenomorph and flew out into the night.
When the man rose from behind the altar, he placed a black cat on top of it. The side of the cat's fur also bore a crudely painted red hand. Tim felt bad for it.
"Now," said the man, gesturing down at the spilled sack of heads by his feet. "Who is responsible for this?"
"Not us!" said Tim. "We found those like that." He wondered if he had to make a Bluff check on telling the truth if the truth sounded like complete horseshit. Better just to move the dialogue along. "So... Who the fuck are you, anyway?"
"I am Grand Wizard Dominus Traldar! Commander of wights!"
Julian cringed. "Grand Wizard? Really?"
"What?" asked the Grand Wizard. "What's wrong with that?"
"It just carries sort of unpleasant connotations where we're from."
"More unpleasant than necromancy?"
Julian looked at Tim, who just shrugged. "I don't know. That's a tough one. Let's just call it different unpleasant."
The Grand Wizard stroked his pet's fur. "Perhaps you will not find it so unpleasant once you have joined my army."
Tim wondered if their best bet wasn't to just jump him right there and then. If he was a powerful spellcaster, then he might be able to disintegrate them all before they got anywhere near him. If, on the other hand, he was more like Julian, whose greatest magical feat was the ability to summon a horse, they could just beat the shit out him and be on their way. Unfortunately, the majority of the grey area between those two extremes would likely see one or all of Tim's group dead.
"That's a cute cat," said Julian. "What's his name?" Was he stalling for time, or was he oblivious to the potential danger they were in and genuinely interested in this guy's pet cat? With Julian, it could go either way.
"His name is Mr. Whiskers." The Grand Wizard scratched under Mr. Whiskers's chin. Tim felt bad that the cat had more to be ashamed of than the shitty red hand painted on his fur.
"How original!" said Julian, unconvincingly. To be fair though, the Difficulty Class on that Bluff check would have been pretty fucking high. "Do you, uh... like music?"
It was now painfully clear that Julian was stalling for time, and failing miserably. Tim picked up the slack.
"What is it you plan to do with us?" Tim demanded, already knowing full well what he intended to do with them. His comment about them joining his wight army didn't leave a lot of room for interpretation.
"Have no fear, tiny halfling. It will only hurt for a second. Once my wights drain your soul from your body, you'll feel no more. But you'll be more powerful than you ever were in life." The Grand Wizard's eyes widened. "You'll have wight power."
"Oh come on," said Julian. "Again, there are so many different ways you could have phrased that."
The Grand Wizard put his non-shield hand on his hip. "I'm not sure you're appreciating the gravity of the situation you're in. Under the circumstances, your constant nitpicking of my choice of vocabulary is –"
*CRASH*
*VWOOOOOOOOOSH*
"HORSE!"
Unmistakably real fire burst out from the book atop the altar like time lapse video of a blossoming flower... which was made out of fire. Also, a horse materialized behind the Grand Wizard.
Mr. Whiskers jumped off the altar.
A look of horror came over the Grand Wizard's face as he started toward his burning spellbook. "NOOO – Oomf!"
Julian's startled horse kicked the Grand Wizard, sending him flying through the air to land in a heap at Tim's feet.
"Hold him!" cried Tim. "Make sure he can't move his –"
A fiercely adorable meow rang out, followed shortly after by Dave's muffled screams. Mr. Whiskers had attached himself to Dave's face.
Tim determined that Dave was competent enough to handle a house cat all by himself. He needed to focus on the shield.
Cooper pounced on the wizard, putting them in a 69 position. He gripped the wizard's ankles with his hands and pinned the arms down with his knees.
Tim grabbed the shield and tried to pull it off the wizards' arm. "And don't let him speak!"
"Get off of me this instant, you filthy –"
The Grand Wizard's words, and Mr. Whiskers's feline screams were overpowered by a thunderous wet fart.
Tim wasn't at an angle from which he could see the wizard's face, but judging by the expression on Julian's, Cooper's fart was more than a fart. "Did he just...?"
"Yeah," said Julian. "He's probably going to want to wash that off before his next Klan meeting." Ravenus landed on Julian's shoulder, and Julian looked relieved for the distraction. "Everything go okay, buddy?"
"Couldn't have gone better, sir," said Ravenus. "They didn't even know I was there."
"You saved our butts. Do you want some eyes?"
Ravenus looked down at the Grand Wizard, who was gagging and weeping. "They've got shit all over them, sir."
"I was talking about the heads in the bag. They have the chewy kind you like."
Tim wasn't having any luck trying to pull the shield loose, so he felt around for the buckles.
Mr. Whiskers's caterwauling came to an abrupt end.
"Dude," said Cooper. "You killed the cat?"
"No," said Dave. "I didn't kill it. I just knocked it out."
"What kind of monster are you?"
"Look at my fucking face?"
Tim finally got the shield loose. He turned around to look at Dave. Dave's face was riddled with parallel sets of bleeding claw marks in every direction. He looked like he'd been attacked by a whole gaggle of cats. Still, they were superficial wounds compared to what a lot of creatures in the C&C world could dish out.
"Don't be such a baby. I think a Zero Level Heal spell should take care of that." Tim knew he didn't have to tell a cleric when or how to use his own healing magic. Dave had only neglected to do it so far so that he could show off how much he'd sacrificed for the good of the team. As if they were going to give him a fucking Purple Heart for punching out a cat.
"My shield!" cried the Grand Wizard. His nose must have still been clogged with shit, because he sounded like he had a cold. "You must give it back! I need it to control the wights!"
"I know, asshole. That's why I took it away."
"But you don't understand. I was keeping them at bay until after we'd talked. In retrospect, that seems unwise."
"I hear you, buddy," said Cooper.
"I was lonely." The wizard looked at Tim with pleading shit-caked eyes. "They'll be coming for all of us now. Dozens of them! You must return my shield!"
"Fuck no," said Tim. "If we need it, we'll use it ourselves."
The Grand Wizard shook his head. "The shield will only serve one master per day. I've already used it today. It's powerless in your hands."
"Well you're a Grand Wizard. You can just Fireball them or some shit."
"I've depleted my magical energy for the day."
"You used up all your spells? Doing what?"
The wizard frowned. "Entertaining myself, mostly. It was getting late, and I wasn't expecting visitors."
"Can't you just jerk off like a normal person?" Tim focused on his Sense Motive skill, and judged the wizard to be telling the truth, with regard to the danger they were all in as well as with his lack of spells. "Get off of him, Cooper."
Cooper let one last fart squeak out before standing up.
The Grand Wizard sprang to his feet and rushed to the altar. The fire had died down, leaving behind the broken twisted remains of an oil lamp. The spellbook had been completely consumed.
"My book!" said the Grand Wizard between sobs. "All that time and money, wasted!"
"I'm sorry," said Julian. "You didn't leave me any choice." He placed Mr. Whiskers's still-unconscious body on the altar in front of the wizard.
"How did you do that, anyway?" asked Tim.
"The same way you did. I sent Ravenus to go swipe a lamp from those guys. I figured the guy with the spear would need to put down his lamp while he was fighting. How'd you know about the shield?"
Tim laughed. "That was simple. What the fuck else is this gangly asshole going to use a shield for? He's no necromancer. He's just a shitty illusionist who got in over his head playing with evil power he's too stupid to under–"
"NYEEEEEEGGGGHHHH!" cried Julian's magical horse, which had wandered away from the fire. Undead hands gripped it by the throat. The horse's large brown eyes were wide with terror. The wight's cold blue eyes shone with sadistic glee.
"Shit!" said Tim. "They're here." He passed the shield to Julian. "Keep this away from him, but don't put it on. It might be evil." He fired his crossbow, hitting the horse, which vanished from the wight's grip.
Julian glared at Tim. "Evil, huh?"
"I was aiming for the wight, asshole."
Julian aimed his open palm at the wight.
"Don't," said Tim. "We can handle them as long as they're coming one at a time. Save your spells for when we need them."
The wight ran at them, its slobbering tongue wagging out of its mouth.
Cooper rushed up to meet it first, swinging his greataxe upward into the creature's undead junk. "Fuck you!" The axe tore up into the wights crotch, easily through the pelvic bone, up into its intestinal area.
It didn't seem fazed as it wrapped its dead hands around Cooper's neck.
Cooper croaked, "Fuuuuuuuuuuck!"
Dave waddled up and swung his mace as hard as he could into the wight's back. "Hiyah!"
The wight let go of Cooper's neck, slid down his chest, and collapsed into a pile of gore at his feet.
Cooper massaged his neck. "Hiyah? What the fuck was that? Toddler karate?"
"Screw you, Cooper. I just saved your ass. The least you could do is show a little –"
"Hey guys?" said Julian. "Where's the Grand Wizard?"
Tim looked back at the altar. Both the Grand Wizard and Mr. Whiskers had disappeared. He scanned the surrounding area. Nothing but illusionary fire as far as he could see. The fire was transparent, but not completely so. At a distance, it had the same effect as a light fog, and Tim noticed that he couldn't see the edge of the pit. What he could see, however, were wights stepping out of the fire-fog from every direction.
"He probably turned invisible," said Tim. He waved his dagger in wide arcs all around him, but sliced nothing but air. Julian, Cooper, and Dave waved their quarterstaff, axe, and mace around likewise, like blind murderers. Their efforts revealed nothing while a dozen wights closed in.
"We'll give you the shield," Tim called out. "Keep the wights back and we'll work something out."
"No," said Julian. "I have a spell for this."
"If you summon another goddamn horse, I'll –"
"Glitterdust!" Julian threw his hands in the air like a birthday party magician.
The air around them was suddenly thick with sparkling glitter. Tim could feel it in his ears and nose. It stung his eyes, nearly to the point that he couldn't—
"What the fuck?" said Cooper. "I can't see anything!"
Tim blinked until he could see Cooper stumbling around, covered from head to toe in glitter, like a drunk Vegas hooker. "Well don't worry. You look fucking fabulous."
"I forgot about that part of the spell," said Julian, who was tapping the ground in front of him with the bottom of his quarterstaff. "Can anyone see? Where's the Grand Wizard?"
Tim looked around for a human-shaped mass of sparkles, but only saw Dave kneeling next to the altar. "He's not here. He's fucking gone."
"That's impossible," said Julian. "There's nowhere he could have –"
"Look at this!" said Dave, still seemingly mesmerized by the altar. "The stone slab on this side of the altar isn't catching any glitter."
Tim cocked his crossbow and peered through the glitter storm for wights. "What are we doing now? Reinforcing gay stereotypes? Who gives a shit about the interior décor of a goddamn garbage pit? If you haven't noticed, we're outnumbered at least three to one, and two of us are fucking blind."
"I don't think it's real," said Dave. He pushed on the wall, and his leopard-furred forearm disappeared into the stone. "It's a secret door!"
No time to think. Tim would take what he could get. He grabbed Julian by the arm and led him to the altar. "Come this way, Cooper! Follow my voice."
As soon as Dave's last boot disappeared into the stone, Tim guided Juilan's head in, then went back for Cooper.
Cooper banged his head twice on the top of the altar, but managed to duck under the lip on his third try.
Tim didn't like the idea of following Cooper's ass so closely with his own face, but he liked the idea of being mauled by a horde of sparkling wights even less. He slipped into the secret passage and breathed a sigh of relief when the wights didn't follow.
A wooden stairwell led down to an earthen tunnel, supported by rough wooden beams, like an old mine tunnel. At the bottom of the stairs, a glittery Cooper shimmered in the faint glow of a small Light stone hanging from the ceiling by a short length of twine.
"Are you okay?"
Cooper groaned. "I've been better."
"Where's everyone else?"
"How the fuck should I know? I'm blind."
"Keep your voice down. I'm going to go ahead. Follow along at a distance." Tim followed the tunnel, keeping as quiet as he could. If Dave and Julian weren't making any noise there might be a reason for that. Tim briefly considered that the reason could be that they were already dead, but that wasn't a useful line of reasoning.
It didn't take long for him to reach the end of the Light stone's radiance, and once again he found himself groping around in the dark.
With one hand sliding along the tunnel wall, and the other stabbing the air in front of him with his dagger, Tim continued along until he saw a speck of light far off in the distance.
With a goal in sight, he quickened his pace, stopping only once, when his arms got tired, to switch guiding and stabbing hands.
When he finally made it to where the light at the other end of the tunnel was visible, he saw Julian standing at the bottom of a rusty iron ladder. His serape sparkled like a sequined ball gown. He was gazing vaguely in Tim's direction, but obviously still blind.
At the top of the ladder, Dave was poking his head through a hatch, the wooden cover of which was resting atop his helmet.
"Psst," said Tim.
Julian looked suddenly alert, looking more specifically in Tim's direction, but way over his head. He pressed his finger firmly over his lips, then beckoned Tim over. He waited a few seconds, then whispered. "We're under Mung's office. He's in there chatting with the Grand Wizard."
Tim nodded. "I knew it. Those two assholes are in cahoots."
"Slow down. We don't even know that there's a conspiracy here. Dave's 'luring PCs to their deaths' theory sounded a little far-fetched to me."
"Maybe it's not that," said Tim. "Maybe those two guys are acting on their own, looting the bodies of fallen mercenaries and selling their shit, you know?"
"No, I don't know. There's absolutely no evidence to support that."
"Did you see any wights carrying weapons?"
"No."
"Did you see any weapons lying around on the ground?"
"No, but that doesn't mean –"
Tim cleared his throat. "I rest my case."
Julian frowned. "Did it ever occur to you that you and Dave are merely projecting your own callous disregard for others onto innocent people?"
Tim balled up his little fists. "We should have killed the wizard while we had the chance."
"Of course, now that option's off the table," said Julian. "I mean, seeing as how we don't know how far up this conspiracy goes."
Tim scratched behind his ear. "Hmm... That's true. We don't want to get mixed up in..." A realization dawned on him. "Goddammit, Julian. You and your fucking Diplomacy skill."
The sides of Julian's sparkly mouth twitched upward slightly. "I assure you, I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I've got a better idea anyway. We'll hide out here in the tunnel until morning when we can use the shield, then go back out into the garbage pit, climb out over a wall, and sell this thing for a fuckton of money."
Julian nodded. "We're taking away their white power and making some coin on the side. I think I can live with –"
*WRAAAAWROOOOOW*
"FUCK!" cried Dave as he fell off the ladder and landed hard on his back. Four deep parallel cuts oozed blood and glitter from his left cheek. With some effort, he placed a finger on his uninjured cheek and croaked out his incantation. "I... heal... me."
"What'd I miss?" asked Cooper, who had finally caught up to them.
"Mr. Whiskers just kicked Dave's ass again," said Tim.
Cooper snorted. "Awesome."
The hatch opened. "Who's down there?" asked Mung.
Tim frowned. "Also, we're fucked."
To Tim's surprise, the hatch closed again.
Julian pulled back his serape, which had protected Ravenus from the worst of the Glitterdust spell. "Fly back out the way we came in," he whispered. "There's a fake stone or something."
"But sir, I can't leave you to –"
"If we get arrested, I'm going to need you on the outside."
Ravenus hung his head. "Very well, sir." He flew off down the tunnel and vanished into the darkness.
The hatch opened again. "Come on," said Mung. "Get up here right now, and no harm will come to you."
Tim would have felt better if he hadn't brought up harm in the first place. "How do we know we can trust –"
A sound like a phone book being slowly ripped in half, accompanied by a rapidly expanding cloud of sparkles erupted from behind Cooper.
"Fuck it. We're coming up." Tim started up the ladder. When he surfaced at ground level, he found that the hatch opened up under Mung's desk.
"What happened to you?" asked Mung. "Were you involved in some kind of pixie orgy?"
"Sure," said Tim. He didn't want to put up with any bullshit any longer than he had to. "Listen, let's cut to the –" He noticed that Mr. Whiskers and the Grand Wizard weren't there. The room was completely empty but for Mung's desk, and the half-full burlap sack sitting on top of it. "Are you here alone?"
Mung shrugged. "Typical government understaffing. Why pay three men when you can pay one man to do three men's jobs? You know how it is."
"Bullshit!" said Dave, huffing and puffing as he climbed out of the hatch. "I heard you talking to –"
Tim pressed his heel down firmly on Dave's sausage fingers.
"Yaaaaaaah!" cried Dave.
Tim eased up on Dave's fingers. "My friend here thought he heard more than one voice coming from up here."
Mung frowned. "I'm auditioning for a play. I was practicing my lines."
"You see, Dave? He was practicing his lines." Mung wouldn't have told such a bald-faced lie unless he was really dumb, he thought they were really dumb, or he was laying down some heavy subtext that they were supposed to pick up on. Tim suspected a little from column B and a little from column C.
The subtext in this case: Don't start no shit, won't be no shit. If they could make it through the front door without making mention of the Grand Wizard or the little racket he and Mung were running, they would be allowed to live.
"Right!" said Dave, nodding vigorously. "Practicing his lines." He looked at Mung. "Well done, sir. You sure had me convinced."
"Are you guys insane?" Julian was crawling out of the hatch, blinking rapidly. His vision must have been returning. "What about your face, Dave? Mr. Whiskers scratched the shit out of you."
"My face is fine, Julian!" Dave licked his palm and rubbed the dry, glittery blood off his cheek. "See?"
"Oh... um... okay." Julian didn't get the subtext as quickly as Dave, but at least he recognized that he should shut the hell up.
Cooper came out of the hatch like he was riding a volcanic eruption and banged his head on the bottom of the desk. "Ow! Goddammit!"
The bag atop the desk spilled over. Wight heads rolled out. One of the heads was covered in shit and missing its eyeballs.
"Those are our heads!" said Tim.
"I'm afraid not," said Mung. "Those heads were turned in by the two gentlemen who arrived with you."
"Those thieving, lowlife sons of –"
Julian nudged him with the shield. "It's okay. Let's let the man get back to his theater practice."
Tim nodded. "Right. Thanks for everything. Sorry we didn't kill any wights. You win some, you lose some."
"Not so fast," said Mung. "I see you've got a new shield there, elf."
Julian shrugged. "It's a piece of junk. I found it in one of the scrap piles. I thought I might paint a picture on it or something. You know." He gave Mung a wide friendly grin, which Tim thought to be a bit much.
"This wasn't a treasure hunt. That's city property."
Julian looked at Tim. Everyone in the room knew what that goddamn shield was. Mung was spouting that city property bullshit to keep within the subtext. Tim nodded for Julian to hand it over. What a fucking waste of a day.
A noise came from the other side of the door that led out to the trash dump. It was something like a muffled scream or howl, followed by a thud. Tim pretended not to hear it.
"What the fuck was that?" asked Cooper.
"Nothing," said Mung. He started herding them to the front door with his wide half-orc arms. "Thank you for coming. Feel free to come back anytime." He slammed the door shut behind them.
"What a fucking asshole," said Tim.
Julian smiled down at him. "Cheer up. I'll buy you a drink."
"What the fuck are you so giddy about all of a sudden?"
Julian pursed his lips. "That's a good question. I don't actually know."
Tim started walking toward Cardinia's West Gate. "It's your Empathic Link to that stupid bird, isn't it? He's probably off somewhere fucking a goose or something."
Julian called out toward the sky. "Ravenus?"
"Right here, sir!" Ravenus's voice was equally chipper and annoying. He flapped down and landed on top of Julian's quarterstaff.
"What are you in such a good mood about. Just happy to see us alive?"
"Well there is that of course, sir. But there's more."
Julian nodded. "Go on."
"That man in the black and red robes, the one with the cat."
"The Grand Wizard, yes?"
"That's the one, sir. He was in that safety cage, surrounded by wights who looked like they had personal grievances with him."
"They must remember who controlled them," said Dave.
"Well good for him," said Julian. "I hope he's learned a lesson."
"Oh he has indeed, sir," said Ravenus. "You see, I pulled up the latch and opened the gate."
The giddiness of Julian's facial expression vanished like a slaughtered magical horse. "Oh my god. We need to get out of here right now."
"Maybe we should hang out in the woods for a while," suggested Dave. "In case they put out an APB for four glittery idiots and a bird."
Tim was in dire need of a drink, but couldn't argue Dave's reasoning.
While they waited in the forest for the last remnants of the Glitterdust spell to wear off, Tim spotted an adorable, wide-eyed nocturnal monkey climbing up the trunk of a nearby tree. One of those kinds that looked perpetually surprised. Beautiful creature. He aimed his crossbow and pulled the trigger.
With naught but a tiny chirp, the monkey fell out of the tree and hit the ground, dead as a post.
Tim picked up the monkey carcass by the bolt sticking out of its neck and held it up toward the branch Ravenus was perched in. He cleared his throat for a British accent. "Cheers, bloke. Jolly good work today." |
4d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Probing the Annis | (Original Publication Date: August 16, 2016)
"How big is this forest?" asked Julian. "How have we not randomly stumbled upon a road in three days?"
Tim sighed. "We would have been home a long time ago if it wasn't for Dave's shortcut."
"You were the one who wanted to take a shortcut," said Dave. "I told you I didn't have any ranks in the Survival skill."
"It's a Wisdom based skill. You're supposed to have this incredible fucking Wisdom score."
"And I said it would be wiser to stay on the goddamn road!"
"Everyone calm down," said Cooper, not usually the voice of reason among the four of them. "So Dave fucked up. It's not the end of the world."
Dave shook his meaty dwarven fist at Cooper. "I didn't fuck up! I said we should –"
"Everybody shut up!" said Julian. He was suddenly overcome with panic. As there was nothing particularly panic-worthy in his immediate surroundings, he assumed the feeling must be coming from his familiar. He gestured for everyone to crouch down and stay quiet. He whispered, "I think something, or someone, just scared the shit out of Ravenus."
"How hard is that?" asked Dave. "He's just a bird."
Cooper snorted. "About as hard as I got looking at your mom's Pornhub videos."
"Fuck you, Cooper."
"Dude, I was agreeing with you. I didn't get hard at all. Hell, I was afraid I'd never get hard again after that shit with the donkey."
Tim threw a pine cone at Cooper's face. "Knock it off. You're being even more of an asshole than usual."
"I'm fucking hungry, man," said Cooper. "Ragging on Dave's mom is the only sustenance I've got."
"Ow!" said Dave, his head jerking forward as Ravenus bounced off the top of it and landed on the ground in the middle of the group. He looked at Cooper. "Have you ever tried raven?"
"Apologies," said Ravenus, flipping himself over and getting up on his large black feet. He shook the dirt off his back feathers, then looked up at Julian. "I saw something in the forest, sir."
Julian's heart was beating hard. "What was it?"
"Two large women."
Tim and Dave frowned in confusion at each other.
"Will you please calm down?" said Julian. "You're going to make my heart explode. I don't think two large women warrants this kind of response."
"That's what the bird is so freaked out over?" said Cooper, the only one of them who couldn't understand Ravenus's speech. "He'd shit himself if he ever set foot in a Walmart."
A grim thought occurred to Julian. "What if we've stumbled upon some kind of special Mordred fantasy zone?"
"Are you fucking serious?" asked Tim. "This whole goddamn world is a Mordred fantasy zone. How are you only now coming to terms with this?"
"That's not the kind of fantasy I was talking about." Julian paused to collect his thoughts. "He created all these game characters, right? And he could possess the body of anyone he created? Maybe he also made himself a variety of pleasure stops out in remote places where he didn't think anyone would ever travel. He inhabits the body of some burly woodsman and pays his women a visit from time to time between gaming sessions."
Tim, Dave, and Cooper gazed thoughtfully into the distance, no doubt imagining that was exactly what they would do if given similar power.
Tim was the first to snap out of his imaginary harem trance. "You think Mordred's a chubby chaser?"
Julian shrugged. "He's a big guy. Maybe he likes a –" He shook his head clear of jiggly naked women. "Who cares what his tastes in women are?"
Tim, Dave, and Cooper shared an exchange of glances, then slowly raised their hands. Even Ravenus raised a wing.
Julian looked down at Ravenus. "Why?"
"Ravens are curious by nature, sir."
"They might have food," said Dave. "How else do they stay so fat out here in the woods?"
"And booze," added Tim enthusiastically.
Cooper stuck a finger two knuckles deep into his ear, perhaps trying to scratch his brain. "He might have them programmed to be perpetually horny."
Julian frowned at Cooper. "You really want to sink to Mordred's level?"
Cooper looked down at his crotch. "Dude, give me some credit. I can probably sink an inch or two deeper."
"Jesus Christ," said Tim. "Just stab me in the fucking ears. I don't need the image of your scabby dick sinking into anyone in my head."
"You know, guys," said Julian. "That fantasy zone theory was just that. A theory. I'm probably way off base with it." He looked down at Ravenus. "What were the two ladies doing when you saw them? Were they kissing each other? Or licking? Or spanking? Or putting their fingers in each others' –"
"Fucking enough already!" said Tim. "Let the bird talk."
Ravenus looked back and forth between Tim and Julian a couple of times, then answered. "None of that, sir, as far as I could tell. One of them was tied to a tree, and the other was lighting a fire under a large iron tub."
Tim grinned at Julian. "Sounds like your theory just got confirmed."
"What?" said Julian. "How does that sound even remotely like a sexual fantasy?"
"Aw shit." Cooper rubbed his hands together. "What did the bird say? Midgets? Ping pong balls? Jell-O?"
"He saw something that sounded a lot more like cannibalism than porn, at least to a sane person."
Dave cleared his throat. "Then maybe we should check it out just the same. We can't very well leave an innocent large woman to die, can we?"
That was just like Dave, masking his true motivations to make himself look like a hero.
"Fine," said Julian. "Let's go sneak a peek at the big girls, and then get back to finding our way back to Cardinia."
Ravenus dutifully led them to the clearing in the woods, but Julian could still feel the unease in his familiar's mind. "It's just beyond those trees, sir."
"Stop," said Tim as Cooper started forward. "Let's be smart about this." He looked up at the branches of a nearby tree. "We'll scout the scene before rushing in there. Cooper, give me a boost up to that first branch, would you?"
Cooper grabbed Tim by the torso and tossed him onto the branch, where he landed as sure-footedly as a bird.
Julian pulled a coil of rope out of his bag. "Tie this to the branch. I'm coming up."
"Why?"
"I want to see what Ravenus is so freaked out about."
Tim rolled his eyes. "Fine."
Julian had a feeling he would comply. It was an excuse to have a drink while Julian climbed up the rope. Sure enough, as soon as Tim's knot was secure, his flask was out before Julian started climbing.
The branches above the first branch were closer to each other than the first branch was to the ground, allowing both Tim and Julian to ascend with ease.
Tim was smaller than Julian, had a higher Dexterity score, and a bonus to his Jump skill, which allowed him to climb the tree much faster than Julian. But he stopped suddenly. The look on his face matched the dread Julian felt through his Empathic Link with Ravenus.
"Holy shit!" Tim spoke softly enough such that Julian wouldn't have heard him without his elf ears. There was something more nefarious afoot than two big girls making out in a tub of Rocky Road.
The first thing Julian saw as he reached Tim was a very tall woman, at least eight feet, standing with her back against a thick pine tree, her hands tied to the trunk above her head. She was obviously a giantess of some sort. Not particularly heavyset, by giant standards. Ravenus must have been referring to her height. Her face appeared pained and distressed as she struggled to free her bound wrists.
Two women, rather than one, were manning the cauldron Ravenus had mentioned. They were hunch-backed, but looked to be just as tall as their captive if they were able to stand upright. With their misshapen backs to him, they didn't look all that frightening. Maybe they weren't in the running for Homecoming Queen, but—
Julian gasped.
When they turned, he could see their faces and hands. They had deep blue wrinkly skin, long pointed noses, and fingernails like blackened dagger blades.
"Ravenus!" Julian whispered.
"Right here, sir." He was perched on the branch just above Julian's head.
"You said there were only two."
"One of them must have been inside at the time."
Julian looked at the clearing again. There was some kind of artificial earthen mound, covered in hanging vines. He supposed that it might serve as the old crones' home.
"Why didn't you think to mention that one of the women you saw had wrinkly blue skin?"
"If you don't mind me saying so, sir, the subject of skin color has more than once set the four of you off in heated and confusing discussion."
Julian nodded. "It can be a bit of a hot-button topic where we come from. Still, you might have mentioned how horrific-looking she is."
"I didn't want to be rude, sir. And I don't feel I have an adequate appreciation for your elven standards of beauty."
"I say we get the fuck out of here," said Tim.
Julian glared at him. "We can't just leave that poor giant woman there to be murdered and eaten."
Tim looked down at Dave and Cooper. "We'll put it to a vote."
Julian felt the struggle between doing what was right and his own cowardice fighting for dominance inside him. He knew in his heart that agreeing to a vote would just be justifying cowardice. Dave would side with Tim. The best he could hope for was a stalemate, unless they let Ravenus break the tie. Doubtful.
"Agreed."
They climbed down the tree and described what they'd seen to Dave and Cooper.
"It sounds like a trap," said Dave.
"What?" Julian had to hand it to Dave. He always came up with creative excuses to tuck tail and run.
"You said all three of them are approximately the same height. That doesn't seem a little odd to you?"
"Not really," said Julian. "Most of us were within a couple of inches of each other before we turned into..." he waved his hands between the four of them. "... all this shit."
"And what are the odds that we arrived here just in time to rescue this woman from being eaten? How long does it take to ready a cauldron?"
"Depending on what they're cooking, it could take quite a while."
"So let's say it takes hours," said Dave. "That amounts to nothing on a long enough timeline. Of all the times we could have stumbled onto this clearing, how small a window is it to arrive here between the time she was captured and the time she was killed? That doesn't seem just a little bit convenient to you?"
Tim shrugged and took a swig from his flask. "That could just be game mechanics."
Dave glared at Tim, obviously not appreciating the crack in their solidarity. "What are you talking about?"
"We might need to activate a trigger to initiate certain events. Remember the RPGs on the NES?"
"NES?" asked Julian, proud of himself for at least remembering what RPG meant.
Tim sighed. "Nintendo Entertainment System. Jesus, didn't you have a childhood? What the fuck did you do all summer?"
"I went to the pool, rode my bike, played outside with my friends."
Cooper put his hand on Julian's shoulder. "You poor, poor bastard."
Julian looked at Tim. "You were saying something about a trigger?"
"Let's say you walk into a village, and there's a woman there with a sick baby. You move your character over to face the mother and press the A button. She tells you her whole spiel about her kid, and you keep hitting the A button because who gives a fuck, you just want to know what she needs. You with me so far?"
Dave and Cooper nodded.
"I guess," Julian lied.
"Depending on the choices you've made in the game, or how shitty you are at playing it, there could be discrepancies of months of game-time for when you even reach that village. Every time you sleep at an inn to replenish your Hit Points, that's another whole day gone by."
This didn't match Julian's experience with RPGs. "You could replenish all your Hit Points by spending one night in an inn?"
"It was a simpler time. May I continue?"
"Sure."
"Now let's say I'm playing the game at my house, and Dave's playing the game at his house. It could take Dave six months to find the same mother and child that I find within a couple of weeks, because he sucks."
"Fuck you," said Dave. "I preferred platform games."
Tim had likely purposefully antagonized Dave just so that he could pause for a drink. When he was done, he continued. "In real life, that fucking kid would have been a worm-ridden corpse by the time Dave showed up. But in the game, he's just as sick when Dave shows up as he is when I show up. It's a side quest which isn't triggered until you actually talk to the mother. She sends you out to go collect some bullshit herbs. You bring them back, the kid gets better, and the mother is so grateful that she gives you the Heartstone Gem that you need to continue along in the game."
Julian tugged on his long ears. "So... How does that apply to our current situation?"
"Who knows? Maybe not at all. I don't know all the technical details of how this game works. But if it works anything like the example I just explained, those two old women might stir that pot forever unless we step in to rescue their captive." Tim took a swig from his flask.
Julian frowned at Tim's flask. "How do you still have anything left in there after three whole days?"
Tim shrugged. "I'm small."
Dave rubbed his hands together. "If Tim's theory is correct, no one gets eaten or murdered if we just mind our own business and go on our way."
"It's just a theory," said Julian. "And not a very convincing one. You were all convinced about my fantasy zone theory a few minutes ago."
"I'm still not unconvinced," said Cooper. "How gross did those old blue bitches look?"
It was time to break out the Diplomacy. Julian folded his arms. "Are you guys really going to tell me you're so afraid of a couple of old ladies that you'd let an innocent person die rather than face them?"
Tim, Dave, and Cooper glanced knowingly at each other, and Julian felt even more like an outsider.
"You saw those fingernails," said Tim. "How frail do you think those two old ladies are to be able to get so old living in this monster-infested forest? Even if we were to try some sort of ill-advised rescue mission, it wouldn't involve marching in there and facing them head on. We'd have to slip in unnoticed somehow."
"You're sneaky," said Julian.
"Yeah, and I'm three fucking feet tall. That woman's wrists are tied ten feet up on that tree. How the hell am I supposed to get up there unnoticed? Climb up her tits?"
"I'm sure she'd be understanding."
"Why don't you send Ravenus?"
Julian shook his head. "It's too dangerous to send him in there alone."
Tim stoppered his flask. "You were ready to send me in there alone."
"Ravenus is a bird," said Dave. "He wouldn't look out of place landing on a branch."
"As long as he keeps his fucking mouth shut," said Cooper.
Julian had managed to talk himself into a corner with his own Diplomacy skill. The others were right. Objectively speaking, sending Ravenus in there alone posed the least amount of risk to everyone. It was either that, or let the giant woman die.
"We'll have to distract the old ladies."
Dave frowned. He'd clearly been hoping Julian would choose to ditch the giant. "Do you have any ideas?"
"We could set a forest fire," suggested Cooper.
Julian licked his lips. "I've got something a little more subtle in mind."
Tim shook his head. "You're going to summon a goddamn horse, aren't you?"
"No," said Julian. "I mean, I'm not just going to summon a horse." He pointed at the ground. "Horse."
A brown horse appeared next to him, saddled and ready to ride.
Julian removed his right boot. "I'm going to create a story." He fixed the boot into the right stirrup so that the top of it dragged along beside the horse.
"Horse and Boot," said Cooper. "A timeless classic."
"Very funny."
"I'm kinda with Cooper here," said Tim. "I don't really get what this story is supposed to be."
"That's exactly the point. I let the horse wander into the clearing, drawing the old ladies' attention to it. While they're pondering what events may have led up to this, Ravenus should have plenty of time to claw through the ropes binding the giant woman."
"I'd say that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard," said Dave. "But you've had dumber, and they've worked."
Julian looked at Ravenus. "You'll be taking most of the risk. What do you think about my idea?"
"Positively brilliant, sir. I'm honored to be a part of it."
Tim took hold of the rope still hanging from the tree branch. "I, for one, would like to see this brilliant plan play out." He started climbing.
"I'm with you," said Cooper. He was tall enough to jump up and grab the first branch without the rope.
Julian struggled up after him, and Dave needed to be pulled up. But soon enough, they were all in the tree, Cooper and Dave cringing at their first view of the wrinkled blue women.
Once Ravenus had taken his place on a branch of a tree near the edge of the clearing, Julian whispered down to his magical horse. "Go!"
The horse walked casually toward the clearing. Julian lost sight of it through the trees for a full minute. Thinking it had wandered off course, he felt a sense of relief at the thought of having to call off the mission. They'd have to think of another plan. Hopefully one that didn't involve Ravenus going in alone.
His anxiety was doubled when the horse suddenly reappeared exactly where it was supposed to be, much too close to the clearing for him to do anything about it.
As he'd expected, the two crones looked curiously at it when it came into the clearing. They hobbled slowly toward it with the support of the same sticks they'd been using to stir the cauldron.
Julian nodded at Ravenus, who then made his move.
The giant woman grinned as Ravenus landed on the branch her arms were tied to. Just as he started clawing his way through, she grabbed him.
*SQUAAWWWK!*
"Ravenus!" Julian cried.
An equine scream rang out. When Julian looked at his horse, the old women had sunk their nails into its flesh. They both grinned in Julian's direction as the horse vanished into a whiff of magical energy.
"Shit!" said Dave as he fell backward off his branch.
Julian was no less unnerved by their horrible faces, but he'd been hugging the trunk. He looked for Ravenus again. The giant woman held his wings against his body. Her hands were turning blue and growing long black fingernails. Her back hunched over as her hair darkened and her skin turned wrinkly and blue.
Tim and Cooper were on the ground by the time the transformation was complete. Julian looked down at them.
"It was a trap. The giant is one of them."
"I called that shit," said Dave. His face was bruised and bleeding. He'd apparently hit a few branches on the way down. Julian was sure he should feel good about that, but Ravenus's confinement and terror were overriding any of his own feelings.
When Julian looked again, the old woman holding Ravenus squatted on the ground. A cloud of green vapor began seeping out from under her ragged, filthy skirt. It soon obscured both of them from view, and Julian felt a new sensation.
His stomach turned as he breathed short shallow breaths. There was no point in trying to contain it. Lunch was coming back up. Still clinging to the trunk of the tree, he doubled over and vomit spewed from his throat like an exploding can of equal parts peas and botulism.
"Goddammit," said Dave, just after the splat.
Julian actually felt a little bit of relief fighting through Ravenus's terror. He hoped that his puking on Dave was giving his familiar at least a little comfort.
Getting down from the tree proved challenging, as Julian's stomach felt like it was spinning in a random orbit around his body. When he made it to the lowest branch, he let himself drop to the ground. It might have hurt if his nausea hadn't been distracting him. He picked himself up and began stumbling toward the green smoke, now seeping out of the clearing between the trees.
"Julian!" said Tim. "Stop, wait!"
Julian paused only long enough to throw up one more time and give the finger to whomever wasn't coming with him.
Once he was engulfed in the green fog, he was completely blind and even more nauseous. He felt his way from tree to tree, his eyes stinging, and his insides threatening to abandon his body entirely. It was as though he were trapped inside a bag of old rotten eggs.
He choked and gagged as he made his way farther into the clearing. He wanted to call out Ravenus's name, but he was having enough trouble simply breathing. A particularly heavy fit of coughing sent blood rushing to his head until the green fog faded into black.
Julian didn't think he could have been out for more than a second, but when he came to, the air was clear. He could breathe and see. But he couldn't move.
If Tim, Cooper, and Dave were any indication as to why he couldn't move, it was because he, like them, was bound from the shoulders down in a tight coil of rope. They were sitting up against a stack of firewood. Julian was facing them. From the ache in his back, he guessed he was leaning against the stump of the tree which had provided said firewood.
Julian looked down to confirm that he was, indeed, completely swaddled in rope. The four of them sat helpless in hemp cocoons. Even Ravenus hung upside down from a branch, coiled down to his neck in twine. To make matters worse, Julian could feel the rope against the skin of his right foot. His boot was still missing.
"You followed me," said Julian. "Whatever happens, I want you to know I appreciate that."
Dave frowned through his vomit-crusted beard. "That really makes it worth it."
"Where are the old ladies?"
Cooper looked past Julian. "They all went into the side of the mound. They've been in there a while."
Tim was the only one of them who had a high enough Dexterity score, and enough ranks in the Escape Artist and Rope Use skills to have a prayer of getting out of his bindings, but he was also the only one who was still asleep.
"Dave," said Julian. "See if you can wake up Tim."
Dave, being a dwarf, wasn't especially lithe to begin with. With his body coiled in rope as tightly as it was, it was a wonder he could manage to squirm at all. But with all their lives on the line, he shifted his broad torso around until he was facing Tim. "Tim," he whispered. "Tim! Tim!"
Tim's only response was a chunky tendril of drool.
"Tim!" Dave repeated, leaning over to nudge him with his head. "Tim!" He leaned too far, falling over and planting his face in Tim's lap.
Cooper snorted. Dave and Tim looked like a fat maggot going down on a skinny maggot.
Undignified as they may have looked, Dave had at least succeeded in waking Tim up.
"Dave?" said Tim. His eyes widened like Dave's head was made out of bees. "Dave! What the fuck, man?" And with that, all hope of a quiet escape was lost.
To Tim's credit, he had just woken up, and Dave's peculiar and untimely decision to grunt and thrust his face against Tim's crotch only added to the ambiguity of the situation.
Dave discontinued his head thrusting and sighed. "Sorry, man. My nose itched like a sonofabitch."
"I see our guests have awakened," croaked a haggish voice from behind Julian. Tim and Cooper looked scared shitless. Dave glanced up, then quickly shoved his face back into Tim's crotch.
Julian fell backward trying to get a better view. Three giant blue women stared down at him. Up close, they were even bigger and more horrible. Their faces were a mass of sagging, wart-riddled wrinkles. Their filthy black hair was so infested with roaches and centipedes that it moved like stormy seas atop their heads. They grinned down at Julian and his helpless friends through chipped yellow teeth. But their eyes were worse than anything. Orbs of bulging red capillaries surrounding solid black irises. Maybe not the worst thing. It was a toss-up between the eyes, the hair, and the skin. All of it was the worst thing.
"Are you hags?" asked Tim.
Julian turned his head to glare at him.
Tim stuck his tongue out at Julian. It was a poor substitute for the middle finger he no-doubt would have offered instead if he could move his arms. "That's what they're called in the Monster Manual."
"Aye," said the woman in the middle. "We are Annis."
Cooper tried to hold his breath, but giggles and snot bubbled out through his nose.
"She said Annis," said Dave. "It's a type of hag."
This conversation was only going to lead to bad places if Julian didn't intervene. He flipped his head over and blurted out the first thing he could think of. "My name's Julian. What's yours?"
"My name is Annie."
Diplomacy was working well so far. In spite of the balance of power weighing heavily in the hags' favor, she was willing to engage in a civil conversation.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Annie the Annis."
Julian may as well have called her Biggus Dickus for how his friends reacted. He should have expected laughter from Cooper and Tim. For being a decade older than he was, they were about as mature as Tim looked. But Dave was a humorless fun-sponge at the best of times. He turned his head back to Dave and attempted a 'What the fuck is wrong with you?' look with his eyes.
"I'm sorry," said Dave. "We knew a girl in high school who had a... similar nickname."
Julian turned back to the annis. "Listen. Maybe I can't make much of a case for why they don't deserve to die. But Ravenus and I are good people."
"No one need die this day," said Annie. "Death is but one of your options."
"Oh," said Julian. "Options are nice. What's Option B?"
Annie grinned at her two silent companions, then at Julian. "One of you must give me your seed."
All residual chuckles from his friends stopped abruptly.
Julian held on to a flicker of doubtful hope that she might have mistaken them for wandering farmers. "I think we might have, like, half of an apple. You're welcome to whatever seeds you can –"
"The seed of your loins!" said Annie. "I wish to bear a child before I'm too old to do so."
"Surely, you've got plenty of time," Julian lied. Her face looked like Yoda's scrotum.
"Excuse me," said Tim. "Sorry to interrupt. We're really flattered and all. But is there, by any chance, an Option C?" It wasn't a polite question, but considering that Options A and B involved death and arguably worse, Julian supposed there was little point in trying too hard not to offend.
"Excuse us," said Annie. She and her companions stepped away and huddled together. Julian caught pieces of their conversation.
"We can't. We'll lose them all."
"They came for the bird once. They'll come back for it again."
"If the others were smart, they'd knock the elf unconscious and escape."
"I don't think the others are smart."
"What if they're killed by girallons? Then we all have to share one bird."
"We'll give them the eye."
"Hmm..."
That last suggestion seemed to satisfy the three of them, leading Julian to suspect that 'the eye' was more than just a stern look and a warning to not be killed by girallons, whatever the hell they were.
The three hags approached Julian and his friends.
"There is a third option," said Annie.
Tim, Cooper, and Dave exhaled.
"What is it?" asked Julian, more cautious than relieved.
"You must travel deep into the forest and find the Amulet of Mighty Fists. It was worn by a monk whom we have reason to believe perished in this very forest not long ago."
"Awesome!" said Dave. "We'll take Option C."
"Whoa," said Julian. "Hold on just a minute. Let's not rush into anything."
"I assure you I've taken all the time I need to think this through."
"Just shut up for a second." Julian flipped his head toward the hags. "Would it be possible for my friends and I to discuss this amongst ourselves?"
Annie nodded. "Very well." She twitched her long fingernails, and one of her companions produced a dagger from beneath her rags.
"That's my dagger," said Tim, as if petty theft was currently his biggest concern.
The annis with the dagger sliced the rope near Julian's ankles, giving his feet some room to wiggle. She did likewise with Tim, Cooper, and Dave.
They could have hurried the process along by cutting the ropes near their hands as well, but chose not to. It was either some kind of psychological game they were playing at, or they just found it entertaining to watch their captives wiggle, squirm, and roll in the dirt.
Tim was the first one free of his bindings, which accelerated the process as he helped to free up Cooper and the two of them went on to assist Dave and Julian. Ravenus still hung upside down from the tree branch. He was awake, but remained quiet.
Julian knew better than to request his familiar be allowed to join in the conversation. His seed wouldn't be of any use to the annis, and he would be their hostage if Julian and his friends chose Option C.
They huddled on the other side of the tree from where the annis remained.
"What are girallons?" asked Julian.
"They're like gorillas," said Dave. "But with two extra arms."
"That's it?"
"Pretty much."
"That's so stupid. You can't just throw a couple of extra limbs onto an existing animal and call it a monster."
Tim cleared his throat. "Were you going somewhere with this? Why are we talking about girallons?"
"The annis said there were girallons in the woods."
"I didn't hear them say that," said Cooper.
Julian pointed to the pointed tip of his left ear.
Cooper nodded. "Sweet."
Julian looked at Dave. "Are we strong enough to fight them?"
"Who?"
"Jesus Christ, Dave! Pay attention. The girallons."
"You could have been talking about the annis."
"I know we can't fight them. They incapacitated all of us with an old lady fart."
Dave stroked his beard. "I don't know. I don't remember what the Challenge Rating is for a girallon."
"It doesn't matter," said Tim. "Even if we could take down a few of them, there's no telling how long we'd have to wander around in the woods on a wild goose chase for a magical item which may or may not even exist. Option C, in all likelihood, amounts to the same as Option A."
Cooer pulled his finger out of his nose. "I forgot. What was Option A?"
"Death."
"Shit. That's no good."
"The only option still on the table isn't much better," said Tim. "One of us is going to have to probe that annis."
Everyone took a moment to cringe and shudder before Dave asked the obvious question.
"How do we choose who does it?"
"I vote Dave," said Cooper. "His first time should be memorable."
Dave gave him the finger. "Tough shit, Cooper. We can't vote now, because you just tainted the process."
Tim rubbed his chin. "Interesting. How do you figure?"
"By declaring his own vote early, he ensured that both you and Julian would also vote for me. Not because you're an asshole like Cooper, but because you want to save your own asses, and that would guarantee you an automatic majority."
Tim sighed. "Dave killed democracy. Any other ideas?"
The obvious answer was Julian, seeing as how it was his familiar who was keeping them all from just running away. He wondered why no one had brought that fact up.
Cooper was a loyal friend, and was probably still hoping Dave would have to do it. Dave had a high Wisdom score, and was possibly weighing the long-term repercussions of throwing Julian under the bus. But Tim's motivation for keeping quiet was still a mystery. Perhaps it had something to do with why he was squatting down and playing with grass.
Tim stood to his full three-foot height. "We'll draw straws." He cupped his hands together and made the tips of four blades of grass sprout from between his thumb and index finger. He raised his arms and offered Dave the first choice.
Dave licked his lips and wiped his right hand over the leopard fur on his left arm, either to remove sweat or for some new luck ritual. He placed his fingers on one blade of grass, then switched to a different one, keeping his eyes on Tim's. Tim raised his eyebrows and gave him a weak smile. Dave grunted, then pulled one of the blades he hadn't yet touched. Without knowing the length of the straws, it was impossible to tell if Dave was holding the short straw, or one of the long ones.
Next was Julian's turn. He didn't trust Tim any more than Dave did, knowing Tim had a high Intelligence score, a bunch of ranks in the Sleight of Hand skill, and a sense of ethical responsibility as small as his little halfling dick. Julian kept his hands at his side while he chose a blade of grass in his mind. When he'd made his choice, he plucked it out of Tim's hand like a striking cobra.
Dave sighed with relief. His blade and Julian's were approximately the same length.
"Down to you and me, buddy." Tim offered his hands up to Cooper.
Cooper frowned down at Tim's tiny hands, then placed two giant fingers on either side of one of the two remaining grass blades.
Tim's gaze darted back and forth between Cooper's eyes and fingers. He swallowed hard. His relieved sigh when Cooper pulled the blade from his hand confirmed Julian's suspicion that Tim wasn't leaving this contest entirely up to chance.
Cooper's straw was half the length of Julian's and Dave's. Tim pulled the final blade, then wiped his hand on his pants. Julian watched half a grass blade flutter from Tim's hand to the ground. Though it was exactly what he'd expected to see, he told himself it didn't prove anything.
"Tough luck, Coop," said Dave. "Have fun probing the annis."
Cooper sighed. "It's a step up from your mom." He started back toward the tree. "Might as well get this over with."
Julian followed along behind, feeling a mixture of guilt and relief.
"Have you come to a decision?" asked Annie. Her two subordinate hags rubbed their fingernails together in anticipation. They sounded like tarnished silverware.
"It's your lucky day, lady," said Cooper. He pulled down his loincloth and stepped out of it. "So you wanna do this here? Or should we –"
"You can accompany me inside." Annie took Cooper by the arm and led him to the mound, not looking the least bit put off by the sight of his schlong, even though it looked like a Dali painting of a rotting ear of corn.
"I don't know who I feel worse for," said Julian.
Dave nodded grimly, but Tim had just up and disappeared.
The sneaky little jerk was walking out of the mound, sucking back stonepiss from his flask, as Annie and Cooper approached. As soon as he cleared the vines hanging over the entrance and saw Cooper's junk, he spit out what he'd been drinking.
"Jesus Christ, dude! You couldn't wait until you got inside?"
The next couple of minutes seemed like years. How is one supposed to pass the time while one's friend attempts to impregnate a giant blue hag a few yards away?
The other two annis didn't seem uncomfortable at all. They merely watched Dave, Tim, and Julian.
"Salut," said Tim. He took a small swig from his flask. One of the annis winked at him. He took a much larger swig.
Only about a minute of awkward silence followed before an ear-shattering scream sent birds flying out of trees all around the clearing. It was Annie.
"Ow!" said Cooper. "What the fuck is wrong with you, lady? No, don't – Ow, goddammit! Knock that shit off!" He ran out of the mound bleeding a pattern of diamonds from the chest. Four deep cuts from either shoulder, crisscrossing downward to his belly.
Annie came out after him, seething at the entrance, naked as the day she clawed her way out of her mother's wrinkly blue vag. Her breasts hung like a couple of moldy pomegranates in crusty tube socks. The carpet matched the drapes, right down to the bugs and worms.
"How dare you!" cried Annie. "We shall revel in your slow and agonizing deaths!"
"Hold on," said Julian. "Let's everyone just calm down, huh? Whatever happened, I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement."
"You are in no position to negotiate, elf. You have nothing we want."
"But what about Option C? We could get you that omelet."
"Amulet," said Dave.
"Sorry. I'm just hungry. Amulet. What was it called? The –"
"The Amulet of Mighty Monkey Fisting!" said Cooper.
Annie's face briefly showed more confusion than anger.
Julian frowned. "I'm sure it wasn't that."
"The Amulet of Mighty Fists," said Tim. He glared at Cooper. "Worn by a monk. Not a monkey."
Annie didn't immediately reject the idea, but she was going to need some more convincing. Julian was trying to think of how best to exaggerate their qualifications for the job when the other two annis escorted Annie back into the mound.
"Think of the power!" said one of the other annis. "Think of Lord Wallace. How he disgraced us. The amulet will tip the balance of power. We can paint the walls of his keep with the blood of his sons."
"The amulet is gone," said Annie. "We searched the monk's body and could not find it. What makes you think those four fools will have any better fortune?"
"The elf is versed in the ways of magic. He can spot with ease what is hidden from our old eyes."
Annie re-emerged from the mound. Thankfully, she was once again dressed, and seemed to have calmed down a little.
"Very well, elf. You have one more chance. Fail me again and all the sniveling in the world won't save your precious bird."
She wasn't bothering with niceties anymore. All they could do was find that amulet.
"Can we have our weapons back?" asked Dave.
"No."
Julian looked down at his feet, one booted, the other bare. He probably shouldn't push his luck, but one more good Diplomacy roll could make a hell of a difference strolling around in the woods.
"Can I at least have my boot?"
"GET OUT OF HERE!" screamed Annie. Even the bugs in her hair burrowed deeper in fear. Julian tried not to stare.
Julian backed away, and Cooper took a step toward his loincloth.
Annie hissed and brandished her fingernails, causing Cooper to stop dead in his tracks. She hobbled quickly to the loincloth, picked it up, tore it to pieces, and threw the pieces into the fire under the cauldron.
Cooper frowned. "That's just mean."
"Let's go," said Tim.
Julian looked up at Ravenus as they passed underneath him. "I'll be back for you."
"Very good, sir. Do try not to be too long."
Just before they exited the clearing, a haggard old voice called from behind them. "Wait."
One of the subordinate annis had followed them. She held up a blue gemstone hanging from a silver chain. "There is danger in the forest. Wear this." Strangely enough, she offered it specifically to Cooper.
"Okay, thanks." Cooper looped the chain over his head. The stone rested high on his chest. It was a gaudy piece of jewelry which looked especially out of place on his bleeding torso.
The annis twitched her fingernails. "Travel north until you reach a creek bed, full of stones and roots where once there ran water. Follow it eastward until you see the Great Elm. Beneath its mossy branches, you should find the remains of the deceased monk. I suggest you begin your search there."
"Awesome," said Tim. "Thanks for the tip." He clapped his hands together. "Well, daylight's a-wastin'." Not the most polite way to disengage conversation, but it got the job done. The hag retreated back to her mound, and Julian, Tim, Dave, and Cooper stepped into the forest.
Once they were a little ways out of the clearing, Tim turned around abruptly and glared up at Cooper. "Do you mind telling me just what the fuck happened back there?"
"I'm in a little bit of pain here," said Cooper. The entire front of his body was sticky with fresh blood, still running from his chest, coating his belly, and dripping from his dong. He pointed at Dave. "Dude, how about shooting me some fucking Hit Points?"
Dave touched Cooper's finger. "I heal thee."
Cooper farted ecstatically as his wounds closed up. "Oh that feels so much better."
"All right," said Tim. "Spill it. What did you do to piss her off like that?"
Cooper shrugged. "Fuck if I know. I stuck my finger up her ass, and she flipped the fuck out."
"What the... Why would you..." Tim was trembling with frustrated rage. "Do you even know how fucking babies are made?"
"I thought that was, like, their thing. You and Dave both told me to probe her anus."
"We said probe the... You know what? Never mind that. How would we even know if that was her thing?"
"Maybe it was in the Monster Manual. I thought it was weird, but you both insisted, so..."
"Have you ever seen anything like an anal fetish in any of the monster descriptions?"
"Hang on," said Dave. "Is that the finger I touched to heal you?"
"Um..."
"Goddammit, Cooper!"
"Shut up," said Julian. "Let's just go and find the amulet. She said to go north, right?"
"Maybe," said Dave. "She was so gross, I was having trouble paying attention."
Tim nodded. "I zoned in and out. North sounds good."
In the distance, some kind of beast let out a terrible howl.
"That came from the north, didn't it?" said Julian.
Dave sighed. "Of course it did."
They trudged along at the speed of Dave, which was just fine with Julian. His right foot was aching from all the rocks, twigs, and roots he was stepping on. Removing his other boot might have distributed the pain more evenly, or it might have just made his left foot as sore as his right one. He kept his one boot on for now.
Half an hour later, they came to a dry creek bed, which prompted a memory of the annis having mentioned one.
"Okay," said Julian. "This is a good place to take a rest." Before anyone could object, he sat down on a big rock and started rubbing his foot.
No one seemed remotely interested in objecting. Tim sat against a tree and had a drink. Dave picked bits of dried vomit out of his beard. Cooper scooped up a fistful of dirt and scrubbed the dried blood off his chest, belly, and junk.
As he massaged the soreness out of his foot, Julian looked down the creek bed to see if he could get some idea of the terrain. A deer nibbled on some leaves about fifty yards ahead. Just a deer. No wings or tentacles or extra legs or anything. Just a simple white-tailed deer. There was something reassuring in that. It put Julian's mind at ease.
"Guys," he whispered. "Take a look at that."
There was an air of peace and awe as everyone stared at the deer, soon broken as a blur of white crashed out of the branches above.
Julian, Tim, Cooper, and Dave ducked into the creek bed like they'd been sucked into it by a force more powerful than gravity.
"What the hell was that?" asked Julian.
"A girallon," said Dave.
Julian peeked over the bank.
The giant, four-armed, albino gorilla grabbed the deer by the antlers and savagely slammed its body against the trunk of the tree it had just been nibbling until the antlers snapped off. It paused for a second, staring first at the very dead deer on the ground, then at the antlers in its hands. Apparently not a fan of shoddy animal craftsmanship, the girallon screamed and pounced onto its prey, pounding the shit out of it with all four of its fists.
"Goddamn," whispered Cooper, who had joined Julian at the bank. He squeaked out a soft fart. "Sorry."
Julian couldn't blame him. He was relieved that he was able to remain in control of his own bodily functions while witnessing such a brutal attack on another living thing. And as Cooper's farts went, it was a pretty tame one.
The girallon bit into the side of the deer and tore away a massive amount of flesh and fur, which it spat on the ground so that it could continue tearing the rest of the corpse apart. After about ten more seconds of ripping apart the deer, the girallon froze. A second later, it turned around, vaguely facing Julian's direction. It twitched its nostrils, pivoting its head back and forth more and more narrowly, gradually homing in on Julian's exact location.
It took a step toward them, still sniffing the air. Julian and Cooper ducked down.
"It's coming this way," said Julian. "I think it picked up Cooper's fart."
Cooper stuck out his bottom lip. "I was nervous."
"I know. I was too. Maybe it'll just go away if we're really quiet and don't fart anymore."
Dave shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea. We have to pass through its territory. Shouldn't we confront it while we know where it is instead of waiting for it to jump out of a tree and catch us off guard?"
"Confront it with what?" said Julian. "We don't have any weapons. Did you not see that thing?"
"What happened to 'That's so stupid. It's just a gorilla with two extra arms'?"
Julian couldn't believe Dave wanted to use what little time they had to gloat, but he felt he had to defend his statement. "Just because it's big and scary doesn't mean it's any less ridiculous a concept. Yeah, it could probably kill us all in under a minute, but that doesn't change the fact that it looks like a short guy waving his arms behind a tall guy."
"Brilliant," said Tim. He looked at Cooper, then at Dave.
Dave shook his head. "No fucking way."
Tim took a swig from his flask. "It's the only way, Dave." He offered the flask to Dave, who accepted it and gulped down most of what was left.
Cooper scratched under his armpit. "So... What's going on?"
A minute later, Dave was silently sobbing with the side of his face pressed into the small of Cooper's back.
"Stop crying, Dave," said Cooper. "This isn't any more fun for me than it is for you. And keep still. Your beard is tickling my ass."
Julian and Tim scrambled under some exposed tree roots so that they could watch without being seen.
Together, with tiny strides for Cooper and long strides for Dave, they walked out of the creek bed.
The girallon stopped sniffing the air when it spotted something not entirely unlike itself. It barked what Julian hoped was a friendly greeting. It didn't sound all that friendly. Dave waved his left hand.
They were all going to die.
Cooper barked back an impressive imitation of the girallon's initiating call.
The girallon approached warily on its legs and lower arms. Cooper and Dave stood their ground, probably because there was no way they'd be able to imitate the girallon's walk.
When it got within five feet of them, the girallon attempted to look over Cooper's left shoulder. Cooper turned left, and Dave sidestepped behind him. When it tried to look right, they repeated the move in the opposite direction.
"I think this is a good sign," said Julian. "It suspects something's amiss, but it's too dumb to know exactly what's wrong. It's not perfect, but under the circumstances..." He realized he was talking to himself. Tim was nowhere around.
The girallon leaned in to get a close look and a good sniff of Cooper's junk. A fart wheezed out like the last note of a dying trumpet player. Dave's fists balled up tight enough so that solid iron might ooze out from between his fingers if he'd been holding some.
The girallon stood on its legs alone, its head rising a good foot and a half above Cooper's. It roared what sounded to Julian like a challenge, and pounded its chest and abdomen with its fists. It sounded like it was carved out of wood.
"Raaaaahhhh!" said Cooper, thumping his own chest as Dave flailed his fists against the sides of his belly, which sounded more like someone slapping a waterbed.
A stream of urine spouted out from between the girallon's legs, forming a puddle at Cooper's feet. Perhaps the relative sizes of their members was another point of contention. Julian could hardly make out the tip of the girallon's penis poking out from its fur. It must have been as small as Tim's, which Julian had seen more times than he'd ever wanted to. But to the beast's credit, he put out some strong-smelling urine. Julian could smell it from way over by the creek bed, like spoiled meat marinated in vinegar.
Cooper was doing an admirable job of not pissing himself for once. He stood his ground while the girallon pissed gallons of urine in a stream that Julian thought would never end. It finally did end when the girallon lost its shit for what seemed like no reason at all.
It screamed and bared its fangs just before punching Cooper in the side of the head, sending him a good five feet away from Dave.
The girallon stopped screaming and stared down at Dave, then at Cooper who was struggling back to his feet, and then at Dave again.
"Fuck," said Julian.
"Fuck," said Dave.
"FUCK YOU!" said Tim, from somewhere above everyone else.
The girallon looked up, and its face was met with a falling backpack. Judging by the impact, it was full of rocks.
Dave took advantage of the distraction, running between the girallon's legs and Super Mario punching it in the nuts.
There was no longer any point in hiding, so Julian grabbed a rock from the creek bed and ran over to join the fray.
While the girallon cradled his balls, Cooper jumped on its back and caught it around the neck in a choke hold.
The girallon backed up hard into a tree trunk.
"Ugh," said Cooper, squashed in between. But he kept his hold.
"Shit!" said Tim as he fell out of the tree. He caught one of the beast's flailing upper arms, wrapping his own arms and legs around it.
Dave did likewise, wrapping his arms and legs around one of the girallon's legs. The poor creature looked like it was working at a daycare for troubled youths.
By the time Julian reached the fight, it looked to be just about over. The girallon's formerly pink face was now a deep shade of purple, and the arm supporting Tim's weight hung limp at its side. Its free upper arm took some desperate swipes at Cooper, but didn't have the reach.
Finally, it just couldn't stand anymore. It fell forward to its preferred walking position on legs and lower arms, then the arms buckled and it collapsed onto its face.
"Hurry up!" Cooper said to Julian. "Bash its brains in with your rock."
Julian frowned down at his rock. "It's helpless. Can't we just leave it unconscious?"
"You can be such an idiot," said Dave, pushing himself up from between the creature's legs. "It was your stupid idea that almost got us killed. And now you want to leave it alive so it can wake up pissed off and have another go at us?"
"It was my idea," said Tim. "Julian only inspired it." He too had let go of the girallon, and was now staring down into its piss puddle. "And it worked. Cooper, punch it in the head a few times if you like, but stick to non-lethal damage. It doesn't deserve to die for defending its territory."
Dave stomped over toward Tim. "Have you all lost your minds? Since when do you give a shit about animal rights or whatever? And how can you possibly say that your stupid idea worked?"
Tim looked down at Dave's crotch, then at his legs where his armor was dripping. "You pissed yourself, didn't you?"
"And you, of all people, are going to judge me for that? Do you know how many times you've pissed yourself since we've been stuck in this game? It's like you think you're going to win a prize if you do it enough. I thought I was going to die with my face in Cooper's ass, so don't even –"
"I'm not judging you," said Tim. "I'm just saying that my idea was working until you blew it." He gestured down to the piss puddle.
"What are you talking about?"
Tim squatted down over the puddle. "See this big puddle here? That's where the girallon pissed. He was marking his territory. And that little puddle over there, that's where you pissed. And see this little stream running from that one to this one? When your urine mixed with his, you challenged his territorial claim. That's when he went apeshit, if you'll pardon the pun."
"Nice going, Dave," said Cooper, who had finished his business with the girallon and joined the rest of them. "Don't cross the streams, dude. Didn't you see Ghostbusters?"
Tim dumped the rocks out of his backpack. "Stay here for a minute. I'll be right back." He darted back toward the creek bed.
It was an awkward wait. Julian didn't want to start up anymore shit with Dave, but he couldn't very well make small talk either. Any idle chatter on his part would be interpreted as "I'm deliberately not talking about how you endangered all of our lives by pissing yourself, because I'm a better person than you." Fortunately, Tim didn't take too long. He returned wearing a refilled backpack, and holding his seemingly endless flask of stonepiss.
"Maybe we should tie this thing up," said Julian. "We could knock him out again and cut him loose on our way back." He looked at Tim. "You got any rope in there?"
"Nope." Tim necked back the last few drops from his flask. It had a finite supply of booze after all. Next, he did something that Julian felt safe in assuming that none of them were expecting. He knelt next to the puddle of girallon piss and submerged his empty flask, holding it there until the bubbles stopped.
"Dude," said Cooper. "Who the fuck are you? Chipmunk Grylls? I'm sure there's a stream or something nearby."
Tim smiled up at Cooper. "Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it."
As Tim stoppered his flask, Julian tried to envision a scenario in which one might need a flask full of gorilla urine. None came to mind.
"Um... Okay," said Dave, clapping his hands together. "Now that that's done, shall we continue on our way?" He seemed in better spirits now that someone had taken the pee spotlight off of him.
Tim put the flask inside his backpack. "Not yet. Girallons track by scent. Before we leave this girallon's territory, we should mask our own scents as best we can."
"Should we all piss ourselves?" asked Cooper.
"No. That's like ringing a cowbell. In fact, you and Dave are going to have to work extra hard to mask your scents."
"With what?" asked Dave.
Tim plucked a five-pointed leaf from a vine wrapped around a nearby tree trunk. "Smell this." He passed it to Dave.
Dave sniffed. "Smells kind of minty. What is it?"
"How the fuck should I know?" said Tim. "But it's the most pungent thing around, it's native to the area, and there's a shit-ton of it growing all over the place. It's our best bet." He climbed up the tree trunk, using the vine for hand and foot holds, then crawled out onto a branch where a similar vine was hanging down almost to the ground. He slid down the vine like a fire pole, stripping leaves off all the way down. He packed some into his backpack, and stuffed the rest into his tunic and pants.
Fifteen minutes later, Dave, Julian, and Tim were all stuffed like fat scarecrows, and Cooper looked like Swamp Thing, wrapped up from head to toe in vines.
"That should do us," said Tim.
After thirty minutes of traveling up the creek bed, Tim stopped. He sniffed the air, looked north, then pulled his flask back out.
Dave cringed. "Please tell me you aren't going to drink that."
"Shh," whispered Tim. "Don't worry. It's empty."
"You drank all that gorilla piss already?" asked Cooper. "You should pace yourself, man."
"Just stay quiet and keep me covered." Tim silently crept out of the creek bed and tiptoed northward from tree to tree, keeping his eyes focused on the treetops.
When Tim was about sixty yards away, Cooper started to get fidgety.
Julian put his hand on Cooper's shoulder. "I'm sure he knows what he's doing, and has a good reason to –" His words lost their credibility when Tim knelt down and submerged his flask in another puddle.
"What the fuck?" said Cooper. "Do girallons piss scotch?"
When Tim was done refilling his flask, he hurried back to the creek bed. "Let's keep moving."
They repeated this bizarre ritual three more times before Julian finally spotted a tree worthy of being called the Great anything. He didn't really know his trees, but it was probably an elm. Its roots were responsible for diverting the water that once flowed down the bed they'd been traveling. A younger, shallower creek ran from the tree to the northwest.
"I guess we're here," said Dave. "I'm going to go wash my finger." He waddled off toward the stream.
Julian looked up into the massive branches of the tree, hoping not to see a giant four-armed gorilla monster. "This is an elm?"
"Yeah." Tim picked up a stick and prodded a conspicuously writhing pile of worms and beetles, some of which scattered to reveal black decomposing flesh. "And this is an arm. I guess this is our dead monk." He unstoppered his flask and didn't flinch at all as he sucked down a couple of gulps of the liquid inside.
"Jesus, Tim," said Cooper. "There's a running stream right fucking there." He pointed at where Dave was squatting.
Out of instinct, Julian looked in the direction Cooper was pointing, but he saw something out of place in the leaves about halfway between where he stood and the stream. Something rectangular and brown, but a different shade of brown than any of the nearby fallen leaves.
"Hey guys, check this out." Julian led Cooper and Tim toward the conspicuous object.
Dave waddled toward them excitedly, as if he too had just made an unexpected discovery. He held up the soggy leafy part of a carrot. Only a sliver of orange dangled beneath it. "Look what I found!"
Julian and Tim frowned at Dave. They were all hungry, but Dave's excitement at about one cubic centimeter of carrot was a little sad.
Cooper's stomach rumbled. "You wanna split it?"
The enthusiasm faded from Dave's eyes and was replaced with annoyance. "Do you know what this means?"
Julian, Cooper, and Tim shook their heads.
"It's a domesticated plant. Look at the bottom. It's clearly been cut with a knife."
Cooper scratched his ass. "You want to avenge it?"
"Goddammit, no! This means that somewhere upstream from here there is a farm. Civilization. And they might be cooking."
"Excellent," said Julian. "That will be useful information to know after we rescue Ravenus."
Dave looked up at the gem hanging around Cooper's neck. "Of course."
"I found something too." Julian bent over and picked up the object he'd spotted before.
It was a book. Or rather, the cover of a book. The pages had all been ripped out. The cover was made from thin, flexible leather, and was smeared with blood, which covered a large portion of the letters on the front.
T_E J_UR__L OF
BR_____ _______STER
"What do you make of this?" Julian held out the journal for the others to see.
Dave stroked his beard. "Tejurlof? Sounds dwarven, but I don't recognize it. Maybe gnomish?"
"Focus, Dave," said Julian. "This could be a clue. Some of the letters are covered in blood. I'm guessing the first word is THE."
"Second word is JOURNAL," said Tim.
Julian looked closely, filling in the missing letters with his mind. "I think you're right. How did you figure that out so fast?"
"I'm Pat Sajak's bastard son."
Julian bit his lower lip. "THE JOURNAL OF who?"
Cooper frowned. "If it says CHESTER COPPERPOT, we're fucked."
Julian held the cover in front of Tim's face. "What can you make out of the rest of it?"
Tim shrugged. "I don't know. Brewster?"
"Too much empty space for that."
"Monky Brewster," said Cooper. "I like it."
Julian looked up from the book. "What is it with you and monkeys today?"
"That's not what I meant," said Cooper. "I was talking about... Never mind. It was before your time."
Dave's eyes lit up. "Brandon! The dog's name was Brandon. That starts with BR!"
"Why the fuck do you remember that?" asked Tim. "And what makes you think that this monk has any relationship to a shitty 80s sitcom?"
Dave looked at his feet. "I liked it."
Tim snatched the leather cover out of Julian's hands. "I'll tell you what it says." He ran his finger along the words as he read them. "THE JOURNAL OF A DEAD MONK TORN TO PIECES BY FUCKING GIRALLONS WHOSE NAME ISN'T GOING TO HELP US FIND ANY GODDAMN AMULETS."
Cooper frowned. "I know I'm illiterate and all, but I feel like that's a lot to fit in to that space."
"The amulet's got to be around here somewhere," said Tim. "Let's start poking around in the leaves and see if we can find this dead fucker's neck."
"Or I could use a Detect Magic spell," said Julian, failing to give credit to the annis for that idea.
Tim raised his flask. "Now you're thinking. Get on it." He proceeded to imbibe a healthy dose of girallon pee.
Julian cringed, then regained his composure. "Detect Magic!" His vision turned grey and hazy. He scanned left and right. The gem Cooper wore around his neck glowed bright blue, but everything else was grey as far as he could see in any direction... until he looked up.
A green aura radiated out from a clump of leafy branches high in the Great Elm.
Julian pointed and whispered, "Up there."
A blurry white stream spouted out from the magical aura, hitting Julian before he had a chance to react. It was wet, and smelled like—
"Get out of the way," said Tim. He shoved Julian away from the stream, sucked down what was left in his flask, and held it under the stream.
"Goddamn," said Cooper. "I guess if that's what you're into, it doesn't get any fresher than this."
Julian's vision returned to normal, his concentration on maintaining his spell broken by Tim's sudden insatiable thirst for animal piss.
"What the hell are you –"
Tim shut him up with a severe look. "Keep your voice down or we're all going to die." His look and tone suggested that he had a far better idea of their situation than Julian did.
"What are you thinking?" Julian whispered.
Tim waved Dave and Cooper over into a close huddle before responding. "How tough would a monk have to be to go walking in these woods alone?"
Dave shrugged. "Pretty tough."
"Give it a number. Let's say the girallon we faced earlier today was a six."
"I don't know," said Dave. "He'd be a ten maybe?"
"With or without the Amulet of Mighty Fists?"
Dave sighed. "I have no idea."
"It's just for illustrative purposes. Make a guess."
"Fine. Ten without. Twelve with."
"Okay. Now let's say there's a bigger girallon around here. One that claimed the Great Elm as his territory. And let's say that it kicked this monk's ass, even while he wore the amulet. How tough would you say that girallon had to be?"
"Fourteen." Dave's tone was bored. He was just spouting numbers at this point to get Tim to his point.
"And if that same girallon were then to adorn itself with the Amulet of Mighty Fists?" Tim now had Dave's full attention.
Dave squinted up into the branches. "Fuck."
Tim nodded. "I'd say that's an accurate assessment of our current situation."
"I'm with you so far," said Julian. "So how do we get the amulet away from the girallon?"
"We don't," said Tim. "We're probably a collective four in this situation. The only reason that first girallon didn't rip us apart was because we surprised it."
"So what do we do?" asked Dave.
Tim shrugged. "We go with Plan B."
"Shit," said Cooper. "We have to go fuck the hags again?"
"That was Option B, in a different set of circumstances."
"So what's Plan B?" asked Julian.
"First, we retreat very slowly and quietly back to the creek bed."
They stepped as quietly as they could. Dave and Cooper made a little noise, but it was covered by the stream of girallon pee still flowing down out from the branches of the Great Elm.
"How many Level 1 spells do you have left?" Tim asked Julian once they were about thirty yards down the creek bed.
"Three."
"That'll do. We need three fast horses, and I need your boot."
Walking around on one boot was something Julian was more than ready to discontinue. He started to take off his boot, then hesitated.
"Come on, Julian," said Tim. "You can have it back when we're done."
"It's not that. I just wanted to make sure... I mean, you're not going to use the horses as bait, are you?"
"No more than I'm going to use the rest of us."
Julian frowned. "I guess that's fair." He removed his boot and handed it to Tim. "Three horses coming up."
"Wait," said Dave. He looked at Cooper, then turned away from him. "Cooper, you need to give that necklace to Julian."
"Fine with me. It hasn't done shit to protect me anyway."
"That's because it's got nothing to do with protection. Don't take it off just yet."
"What do you know, Dave?" asked Tim.
"It's a Hag Eye. I remember it from the Monster Manual. They're using it to spy on us. I didn't say anything before because I didn't want any of you to act weird around it and let on that we know what it is. But if Tim's plan involves double crossing the annis, –"
"It does," said Tim.
"Then they might kill Ravenus long before we can get to them."
Tim gave Dave a thumbs up. "Well done. So what the fuck are we waiting for?"
"Cooper can't just hand it over to Julian for no reason. That will arouse suspicion. We need a credible reason to take such an action. Cooper, crouch down in front of me."
Cooper crouched down in front of Dave, not looking at all amused.
Dave put his finger over his lips, pointed away in a random direction, then did some kind of weird gorilla dance. Again, he put his finger over his lips, then pointed at Cooper. He made a show of flexing his muscles, roaring, and beating his chest. Then he pointed at Julian, after which he wrung his fists under his eyes in a crying gesture. Adding more than what Julian deemed necessary, he made twisting motions with his thumbs and index fingers over imaginary nipples on his breastplate. Finally, he pointed at the gem hanging from Cooper's neck, then at Julian.
"Are you done?" asked Cooper.
Dave nodded.
Cooper pulled the silver chain over his head and handed it to Dave. "What the fuck was any of that supposed to mean?"
"I was saying that you're big and strong, and that Julian's a little titty baby, and so he needs protection more than you do."
"I'm not sure you communicated anything of the sort," said Tim.
"Titty baby?" said Julian.
Dave offered the necklace to Julian. "Put this on, but casually slip the gem underneath your shirt."
That was the first thing Dave said that made any sense.
When Julian had donned the necklace, Tim cleared his throat. "Now can we summon some goddamn horses?"
"Horse. Horse. Horse," said Julian, pointing at three spots on the dry creek bed, and consequently summoning three horses in rapid succession. They whinnied nervously.
"Keep them quiet!" snapped Tim.
Julian stood in front of the horses, rubbing their noses, but keeping his eye on Tim.
Tim set his backpack on the ground and pulled out a flask.
Julian shook his head. No point in dying sober.
To Julian's surprise, Tim set the flask on the ground and pulled out another, then another, and still another. When he was done, he had seven flasks in all. He unstoppered the last two and sniffed each, cringing at the first one and drinking deeply from the second. He slipped the flask with his preferred vintage into his vest pocket and handed two flasks each to both Cooper and Dave, keeping the remaining two for himself.
Tim, Cooper, and Dave huddled around Julian's boot.
Tim licked his lips and looked into Dave's and Cooper's eyes. "When I say go, we pour."
Cooper frowned. "We're going to cross the streams?"
"Exactly. You guys ready?"
Dave and Cooper nodded.
"Come on, guys," said Julian. "I need to wear that."
"Pour."
Tim, Cooper, and Dave emptied their flasks into Julian's boot. Before the flasks were empty, a roar boomed out from the treetops like an angry god had just finished the series finale of Dexter.
"Time to move!" said Tim, no longer bothering to keep quiet. "Cooper, help Dave onto his horse. I'm riding with you." He dropped his empty piss flasks and picked up the boot.
As soon as they had Dave mounted, the ground shook beneath Julian's bare feet. He slipped one foot into the stirrup and pulled himself up.
"GO! GO! GO!" shouted Tim, mounted in front of Cooper and hugging his boot full of urine.
The horses didn't move.
"Julian!"
"Shit, that's right," said Julian. "GO! GO! GO!"
The horses went full-throttle into a gallop along the creek bed. Julian chanced a peek behind him.
"Holy fucking shit!"
It was the biggest, meanest-looking girallon Julian had ever seen. Sure, it was only the second one he'd ever seen, but this one could have been that first one's daddy fresh out of prison. It crashed through the trees and bounded after the horses in a curious six-limbed gallop, and it was catching up to them, slowly but steadily. Sure enough, Julian could see a green amulet around its meaty neck.
"We're not going to make it!" cried Julian.
"Just hang on a little longer!" said Tim.
Riding in front of Cooper, Tim obviously didn't have an appreciation for just how little longer they all had to live.
"Drop the boot!" said Julian. "We'll think of something else!"
Tim hugged the boot tight, trying to minimize the amount of piss sloshing out of it. "Just... a little... longer..."
"I'm telling you, man! It's right on top of –"
Something crashed out from the trees at Julian's five o'clock. Two angry girallon screams rang in his sensitive ears. He looked back, and found that they were regaining their lead as the huge girallon, and a second smaller, yet still very scary girallon, stumbled over one another, the creek bed being too small for the both of them.
"Ha!" cried Julian. "You crazy son of a bitch, you did it!"
Tim cocked an eyebrow and casually sipped from his flask.
The third and forth girallon slowed the whole pack even more.
The fifth girallon leapt out from a tree branch overhanging the creek bed. It's timing was off, and it landed hard behind them, just missing the ass end of Dave's horse.
"How many of these were there again?" asked Julian.
"One more," said Tim. "I think."
And there it was, the first girallon they'd faced, standing ahead of them in the creek bed. It looked even more pissed off than the others. Beyond urine-induced territorial instincts, it had personal reasons to want to tear them apart. It screamed and bounded toward them.
"Go left, into the woods," cried Julian, not waiting for any deliberation. Now that they'd reached this girallon's territory, it was pretty much time to start heading south anyway.
Any one of the girallons could have caught up to them with ease, but even in the open forest, they continued to bark and swipe at one another as they gave chase. More importantly, they continued to lose ground.
"Ravenus!" cried Julian when he thought they must be getting close. He realized that there were no landmarks which would lead them directly to the clearing, and he didn't want to waste a lot of time seeking it out.
Off in the distance, a raven let out a mighty caw.
"This way," said Julian, guiding his horse slightly to the right. He shouted ahead, "We're coming for you buddy!"
A couple of minutes later, they trotted into the clearing. Ravenus still hung from the tree branch. The annis were assembled in front of their mound. Greedily rubbing their blue hands together.
"Do you have it?" asked Annie excitedly. "Where is it? Let me see!"
"You heard her, Julian," said Dave. "Let her see."
Julian looked at Dave. "What?"
Dave whispered, "Give me the eye."
Julian pulled the silver chain over his head and handed the hanging gem to Dave.
Dave pointed his middle finger at the gem in his hand. "See this, bitches." He shoved the gem deep in his mouth.
"No!" screamed the annis who had given Cooper the eye.
Dave bit down hard. The gem crunched, eliciting ear-piercing screams from all three annis.
Annies eyes bulged until they popped and ran down the sides of her face.
"You fools!" cried Annie. "You think that will save you?" She grinned wickedly. "I won't need eyes to savor your screams. When I'm finished with you, you'll wish you'd never –"
Girallon howls and screams grew closer.
"What's that?" said one of the lesser annis.
Tim smiled. "We invited a couple of friends."
"Girallons?" said Annie. "How many?"
Tim guided his horse forward. "Hopefully enough." He threw the boot at Annie, hitting her in the tit and splashing girallon urine all over the three of them.
The first girallon crashed out from the trees and into the clearing, heading straight for the annis. Aside from punching Dave off his horse, it paid the rest of them no mind.
Tim guided his horse to the tree where Ravenus hung upside down. Cooper tossed him onto the branch, where he easily untied the knot.
All three annis had their claws buried deep in the attacking girallon. It barked and swiped at them, but was gushing gallons of blood from dozens of holes.
Julian, Tim, Cooper, and Dave stood out of the way as five more girallons came barreling into the clearing.
Cooper helped Dave back onto his horse. "Let's get our annises out of here."
When they made it back to the creek bed, and the sounds of screaming hags and girallons began to fade in the distance behind them, Julian looked at Dave. "You knew about the eye this whole time?"
"I suspected it was a Hag Eye when the annis handed it to Cooper. He's taller, which would give them a better field of vision, and he's the only one that wasn't wearing any clothes."
"Why didn't you crush it right then and there?"
Dave shrugged. "I might have been wrong. It wouldn't have made a big enough difference anyway. They still would have probably killed us."
Julian pulled aside his serape, where Ravenus sat nestled against his chest. "You holding up okay?"
"No worse for the wear, sir. Just a bit peckish is all."
"You and me both, buddy." Julian really hoped Dave was right about there being a farm nearby, and that they were cooking something. They should at least be able to barter a meal from the silver chain which had held the Hag Eye. But Ravenus's culinary tastes and nutritional needs differed from theirs. "Fly on ahead until you see a big tree. There's some good monk up that way." |
5d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | They Fight Three Giants | And the Johns, who made high school just a little less shitty,
And Jeff Hollingsworth, for being so generous.
"So you're here all alone?" said Hollingsworth, the sorcerer who had been plying them with drinks all night. Though he was only a couple of feet away from Dave, his voice sounded distant and echoing. "No friends? No family?"
Dave stifled a yawn. "I've got friends, man. Take a look around." His vision blurred as he turned his head to look at Tim. He could only focus enough to tell that Tim was passed out face down on the table.
Turning his head to the right, slowly and deliberately so that his vision could keep up, he found Julian likewise asleep, his head hanging back with a string of drool hanging out the corner of his mouth.
This guy was feeding them some strong shit. It hadn't tasted that strong. Kinda fruity, but it really sneaked up on them.
A slight shift further to the right, and Dave was surprised to see Cooper sitting right next to him. He was even awake... kind of.
"Hey, man!" said Dave. He wasn't sure if he was swaying or if Cooper was. "Whassup?"
Cooper's bloodshot eyes opened a little wider, like he'd been in a state of semi-consciousness which Dave had just fully awakened him from.
"Whassup? Did you just say whassup to me? Who the fuck do you think you –"
It started with a belch rising from the depths of his stomach. Dave experienced it in slow motion, hearing every reverberating micro-syllable in rhythm with the to-and-fro flapping of Cooper's half-orc cheeks as the stench of partially digested food and booze washed over his face.
Dave's reflexes were far behind his heightened awareness, however. When the vomit started to flow, Dave saw it come out of Cooper's mouth in what seemed like a series of six frames of animation, but was unable to turn his head in time to avoid a direct blast to the face.
"NOOOO–" He was also not able to stop himself from screaming. The taste was similar to what they'd been drinking all night, but more acidic and studded with chunks of ham.
Dave felt the contents of his own stomach rising like an elevator with an out of control counterweight. He hosed down Cooper's man tits with his own boozy ham-studded vomit.
"Are you two gentlemen quite all right?" asked Hollingsworth.
"Never been better," said Cooper. "Second wind! Let's get a waiter." As much as Dave hated to admit it, Cooper was right. All of Dave's sensory perception was back to normal. His vision was no longer blurred. He could hear the hustle and bustle of the lunch crowd in the tavern at normal speed and volume. Ejecting so much of that shit they were drinking must have cleared his head. He also felt like he could go another round.
Hollingsworth frowned at the chunky orange vomit pooled on the table, the floor, the seats, and dripping off of Dave and Cooper. "Perhaps it would be wiser to continue this conversation at a different venue."
"How about one for the road, then?" asked Cooper.
Hollingsworth's eyes darted nervously out of the booth as he fidgeted in his plain brown woolen robes for something. With a sigh of relief, he produced a small piece of what appeared to be green chalk.
"I was thinking we might leave before one of the tavern workers sees this mess."
"You mean like dine n' dash?" asked Dave. The only way in and out of this place was on the other side of the bar. He and Cooper weren't exactly the stealthiest ones in the party either.
"Heave it n' leave it," said Cooper. "Fuck yeah, let's roll!"
Dave didn't like where this was going. "I just don't think it's worth the risk. Tim and Julian aren't even conscious. How are we supposed to drag them out of here without being seen?"
"Leave that to me," said Hollingsworth, grinning confidently while holding up his tiny piece of chalk. "Would you mind scooting forward a bit?"
Dave held back any further objections and scooted forward in his seat until his breastplate touched the table.
Hollingsworth crawled behind him until he was at the back of the booth between Dave and Cooper. He craned his neck to look over the booth, then turned his attention to the tapestry hanging on the back wall behind Cooper's seat.
Similar tapestries hung at the back of every booth in the tavern. They depicted scenes of heroes fighting fantasy creatures. The artwork wasn't particularly impressive, but it made for better tavern atmosphere than the bare walls at the Whore's Head Inn.
The tapestry at the back of their booth, which Hollingsworth suddenly seemed so interested in, showed a knight on horseback facing off against a bald, grey-skinned giant. The giant was twice as tall as the mounted knight, and wielded a stone above his head, ready to hurl.
Dave wiped some half-digested ham chunks out of his beard and concentrated on calming his insides, lest he also be ready to hurl.
When Hollingsworth determined the coast was clear, he pulled the tapestry away from the wall, revealing a chalk-drawn diagram on the wall. A large pentagon with trapezoids on each side of it. Inside four of the trapezoids were symbols that Dave didn't recognize. Magical runes or something?
Hollingsworth drew one such mysterious symbol in the remaining trapezoid, and the whole diagram flashed with green light for a moment.
"Grab your friends. We must hurry!"
"I'd feel your sense of urgency more if you hadn't just stopped to finish the world's shittiest graffiti on the wall," said Cooper. He lifted his right ass cheek and squeaked out a fart. "On second thought, now time's a factor."
"You do not understand, my half-orc friend. For what I have drawn on the wall is a portal to E'cha." Hollingsworth put his hand through the wall to demonstrate. His arm went in up to the elbow with no resistance, as if the wood was merely an illusion.
"Whoa!" said Dave. "That's incredible." He glanced around to make sure none of the tavern staff was around before standing up on his seat. He touched the wall with both hands, or at least attempted to. His hands went through it as if it wasn't even there. He leaned forward, trying to keep his eyes open as he put his face through, but he couldn't resist closing them. That much accounted for his loss of sight, but his sudden loss of hearing was inexplicable.
"What the fuck?" he said, relieved that he could hear himself say it. He wasn't deaf. He was merely in a much quieter place than the tavern. At least his head was. He opened his eyes.
Dave had assumed that they were going to some other tavern, but the portal's destination was like a lunar landscape, grey and rocky. He squinted in reaction to the glaring sun, which reminded him that they'd started drinking in the late morning. There wasn't a pub in sight. He noticed that his head and hands were poking out of the side of a massive boulder, and framed by an identical chalk diagram drawn onto the stone.
The bottom of the diagram was about ten feet above the rocky ground below. A series of footholds had been chiseled into the boulder from the ground to the bottom of the chalk outline. It would be awkward, but Dave thought he could climb down if he wanted to.
But did he want to? What was the point of skipping out on a bar tab only to be stuck in some barren wasteland? No. It would make much more sense to just pay the bill and hope they could get out of there before anyone saw the mess they'd – "OW!"
A sharp blow to the ass broke Dave's concentration. Cooper's elbow. Already leaning forward, Dave grasped at illusory stone, then tried to step back, slipped in his own vomit, and fell forward.
"SHIIIIIIIT!" He did half a somersault before hitting the ground hard on his back. It hurt a lot, and knocked the wind out of him, but he'd pull through.
With all the strength he could muster, Dave rolled over and pushed himself up. "Stupid asshole. He didn't know what was on the other side of that portal. I might have been –" |
5d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | SMASH | A force from above flattened Dave face down on the ground.
"Ow!" said Tim, awakened from his drunken slumber. "What the fuck, Dave?"
"I didn't –"
"Why is your face full of puke?" Tim looked around. "Where the hell are we?"
Dave sat up. "I don't know. We were drinking with that guy we met in the market." He got on one knee and started to push himself up to his feet. "He wanted to skip out on paying the bar tab, so he –"
"You take your filthy hands off him this instant!" cried Ravenus from above. Flapping his black wings hard, he charged back into the stone. |
5d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | SMACK | Whether it was because he didn't recognize the significance of the chalk drawing or because he was still blind drunk, Ravenus smashed beak-first into the solid part of the stone and fell to the ground. "Son of a bitch that hurt!"
"–AVENUS!" cried Julian as he flew out of the stone clutching his face.
"Fuck," said Dave just before Julian crashed into him.
Julian rolled away from Dave before Cooper followed. Dave didn't even bother with a Reflex save. He just shielded his face and waited to be punished for existing.
"E'CHA, motherfuckers!" To Dave's amazement, Cooper landed on his feet, one foot on each side of his head.
Dave breathed a sigh of relief as he uncovered his face. He got a quick view of Cooper's junk before a brown blob hit him in the face, obscuring his vision once again.
"Sorry about that," said Cooper. "I didn't see you down there. Interdimensional travel gives me the shits."
Dave sat up and wiped the shit out of his eyes. "Fuck you."
Hollingsworth came out of the stone feet first, carefully feeling for the footholds. What an asshole.
"Welcome, gentlemen, to E'cha!" he said when he reached the stony ground.
Cooper walked to the stone and reached up for the portal. "That's a pretty good trick. What is that? Magic chalk?"
Hollingsworth covered his hands with the long sleeves of his robe and pulled Cooper away by the arm. "Indeed it is. And it's very expensive. If the line is broken, the portal will close. I need that to get back."
"You need it?" asked Julian. "What about the rest of us?"
"We need it," Hollingsworth said with a grin. "Did I say I? Of course I meant we."
Tim trudged over to a large pile of boulders. "I could use a wee. What is this place? Why are we here?"
"I think it's supposed to be a pub," said Cooper. He looked around at the bare expanse of dirt and rocks surrounding them all. "Kind of minimalist in the décor."
"It'll have some color once you start shitting all over the –" Tim's voice caught in his throat as the pile of rocks he was pissing on shifted and began to rise, taking on a familiar form.
It wasn't a pile of rocks at all, but rather an extremely well-camouflaged naked man, now standing at least four times Tim's height.
"I'm so sorry, sir," said Tim, staring up at a dong as big as one of his own legs. "I didn't know you were –"
The giant yawned with a sound like the Death Star getting ready to fire and scratched his boulder-like balls. Though his skin appeared flexible, the sound of his fingers against his sack was exactly like stone scraping against stone.
When his itchy balls were tended to, he stared down at Dave and his companions with a stern, but not exactly angry, expression on his face, which reminded Dave of an Easter Island statue.
"Hollingsworth," he said in a booming gravelly voice. "You kept me waiting. I might have gone home had I not fallen asleep."
"I sincerely apologize, Furgal. I needed to make sure they lived up to your demanding specifications."
Dave was still pretty drunk and having some trouble putting together what was going on. He suspected Hollingsworth was talking about the four of them, but he couldn't think of what kind of demanding specifications they could possibly live up to.
Furgal nodded. "They are without friends and family? They will not be missed?"
"After you spend a few more minutes with them, you'll have no doubt about how little they'll be missed."
"Hey!" cried Dave. "Will someone explain what the hell is going on here?" He glared at Hollingsworth as the hazy pieces came together in his mind. "Are you selling us into slavery?"
Hollingsworth shrugged. "Slavery, prostitution, food, who knows? My place isn't to ask questions."
"I don't understand."
"I'm not sure how I can make it any plainer." Hollingsworth though for a moment, then spoke unnecessarily loud and slowly. "I. AM. UNCONCERNED. WITH. YOUR. FATE."
"I understood that much," Dave muttered. "You don't have to be a dick about it. I meant that I don't understand how you could just turn on us like that. We were having a good time. I thought we were friends. How can you live with yourself?"
Hollingsworth smiled gently at Dave. "Believe me. If you knew how much gold I was promised for this, you would have encouraged me to go through with it."
Furgal produced a large moss-covered sack from behind what Dave hoped was an actual pile of boulders rather than another huge naked man. The sack bulged at the bottom, clearly full of something heavy.
Hollingsworth's eyes teared up. "By the gods, I've never seen so much gold!"
"And you never will."
The childlike joy vanished suddenly from Hollingsworth's face. "I beg your par–" |
5d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | CRUNCH | Dave noticed a distinct lack of jingling as Furgal repeatedly smashed Hollingsworth into sorcerer paste. The sack had been full of rocks all along, suggesting that Furgal had meant to double cross him from the beginning.
"What the fuck, man?" cried Tim.
Furgal stopped beating the pulpy remains of Hollingsworth and glared down at Tim. "I care not for such language."
"Language?" said Tim. "Language? You just murdered a man in cold blood, and you're going to give me shit about my language?"
"A man who would sell his own people into slavery is no man. He had no honor."
Julian cleared his throat, still looking appropriately horrified, but now also cautiously optimistic. "Does that mean you're going to let us go home now?"
"Are you in such a hurry that you would leave poor Hollingsworth to be devoured by wild dogs?" asked Furgal. "Is it not the custom, even among you tiny savages, to bury your dead?"
Dave, Julian, Cooper, and Tim glanced at each other and nodded their unspoken understanding. Whatever this guy wants, as long as he lets us go afterward.
"Did you happen to bring a shovel?" Dave asked Furgal.
Cooper frowned at Hollingsworth's remains. "Or a spatula?"
"No need for that," said Furgal. He grinned at Dave. "I will show you a custom of my people, passed down to me by my father. When my sons become men, I shall pass it on to them."
"That's nice."
"Did you notice how I smashed Hollingsworth's body into the ground?"
Dave wished that Julian would take back the Diplomacy reins. "I did notice that."
"Most of it, anyway," said Cooper. He peeled a piece of gore – either an ear or a toe from what Dave could make out – off his chest and flung it into the larger pile of Hollingsworth.
"While I was destroying my foe, the rocks in my sack were getting pulverized to dust."
Cooper cringed as his gaze was drawn to Furgal's junk. "Dude, there are better ways of dealing with guilt."
Furgal lifted his sack and let the powdered rocks flow out onto Hollingsworth's remains. When the sack was empty, he looked at Dave.
Dave didn't know why Furgal had taken such a liking to him, but he wished he hadn't. "That is very impressive."
"Would you care to say some words?"
There weren't many things Dave would have preferred to do less than to make an impromptu eulogy for an asshole they'd just met a couple of hours before he tried to sell them into slavery, but Julian was nodding at him encouragingly.
Whatever this guy wants, as long as he lets us go afterward.
"Dearly beloved," Dave started.
Cooper snorted. He, Tim, and Julian had their heads bowed, which Dave thought was an attempt at fake reverence. But now he suspected they were just trying to keep from making eye contact with him.
"We are gathered here today to celebrate the memory of Hollingsworth. He lived his life like a candle in the wind. Hollingsworth, who loved bowling." Dave could feel his palms sweating as he went further and further off the rails. He needed to bring this back on track and end it as quickly as possible. "Yea, though you walk through the Hidden Valley of Death, may you hear no evil, nor see it." He folded his hands and bowed. "Namaste."
"Namaste?" Julian, Tim, and Cooper muttered.
"Namaste," Furgal repeated solemnly.
Cooper pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. "That was beautiful, Dave."
"Indeed," said Furgal. "Very touching."
Julian clapped his hands together. "Well, we don't want to waste any more of your time. I suppose we should be heading home."
"Very well. Step into my sack, and I shall take you there." Furgal opened the mouth of his sack and spread it on the ground.
Julian looked anxiously at the brown leather sack, stained with dark blotches of what Dave hoped was spilled raspberry jam from an old picnicking accident. "That's very kind of you, but we'll just go back the way we came."
"I'm afraid that will not be possible," said Furgal. "You are my property now. You are coming with me."
"Fuck that!" said Tim. "You told us we could go home!"
Furgal grabbed Tim with one hand and his sack with the other. "And you shall. I will bring you to your new home, where you will help my sons become men."
"Wha–" Tim managed to squeak out before he was shoved into the bag.
Cooper started to run, but Furgal probably anticipating that, let the mouth of the sack drop open next to Cooper and shoved him inside.
"I don't want to fuck your kids!" cried Cooper before Furgal lifted the sack, effectively shutting him up.
"What about honor?" asked Julian when Furgal moved toward him. There was more desperation in his voice than Diplomacy. "Didn't you kill Hollingsworth because he was engaging in human trafficking?"
Furgal squinted at Julian, then at Dave, then at his sack. "Human trafficking?"
"Figure of speech. I meant slave trading."
"I killed Hollingsworth for selling out his own people. There is no honor in that."
"What about us?" asked Julian. He spread his arms and smiled up at Furgal. "Are we not all one people?"
"You are not giantkin. You are inferior tiny races. Not my people." Furgal grabbed Julian and shoved him into the sack.
Only Dave was left. Furgal's giant dick swung like a pendulum as he lumbered toward Dave.
"Please, sir," pleaded Dave. "We can't help your sons become men. Wouldn't you prefer some women for that?"
Furgal stopped and squatted. Even in a squat his face was a good four feet higher than Dave's. "Would you sell out your own people's women? That is even lower than Hollingsworth."
Now that he put it that way, it did sound like kind of a fucked up thing to say.
"No, I..." Dave had nothing.
"Get in the sack."
Dave nodded and stepped into the open sack, which was immediately jerked up around him, engulfing him in darkness, a tangle of slimy flailing elbows and knees, and the worst smell he'd ever experienced. No, it was a smell he was intimately familiar with, but never quite this concentrated before.
"Oh god, what the hell?"
"Sorry, man," said Cooper. "Fear of getting raped by stone giants gives me the shits."
The sack shook and swung, like Furgal was switching shoulders. Dave, already upside down, felt himself sinking deeper in. Then he felt something like a large monkey scramble up his leg. It had to be Tim.
Finally, he felt warm, sticky liquid on his cheek. He reached upward to find something to grab hold of, but he only sank deeper in.
"Dammit, Tim!" Dave cried, the top of his head submerged in half-orc shit. "I'm in up to my eyes. If it gets to my nose, I'm literally going to drown in shit!"
"Stop moving." Tim's voice came from up near Dave's feet, confirming Dave's theory. "You're the densest person here. The more you move, the more you're going to sink."
"Fuck you! You climbed me like a goddamn tree! That's why I'm sinking." Dave tried to kick Tim, but felt the warm, oozing shit pass over his eyes to the bridge of his nose. He stopped kicking and froze as still as he could. "Okay. I'm cool. I'm cool."
"I don't want to sound homophobic," said Cooper. "But I'm kinda scared right now."
"There's nothing intrinsically homophobic about not wanting to be raped," said Julian.
Cooper sighed, as if he was actually reassured by Julian's words. "I mean, did you see the size of that dude's schlong?"
"Screw you guys!" said Tim. "Dave and Cooper could fit double-decker buses up their asses. Julian's almost certainly going to sustain severe internal damage. I'm just going to be a fucking cock koozie."
Dave had a sudden last ditch hope. "Maybe stone giants reach sexual maturity earlier than humans. Maybe they're really young. If they're, like, eight years old or something, they might have smaller dongs."
The inside of the sack went completely silent until Tim finally spoke up.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Dave?"
"I didn't mean... I'm just saying... I was looking for a scenario where we might all survive this."
"What do you think, Julian? Is there anything intrinsically wrong with hoping our rapists are eight-year-olds?"
Now that Tim put it that way, it did sound like a pretty fucked up thing to say.
"Given the circumstances," Julian responded, "I'd say it's an ethical grey area."
Once again, Dave felt the need to reset the train he'd accidentally derailed. "We should make a break for it now."
"With what?" asked Tim. "We don't have any weapons. We can't outrun this asshole. We certainly can't fight him. Remember Hollingsworth?"
"He got Hollingsworth with a surprise attack. If Hollingsworth hadn't been blinded by greed and went into that meeting prepared for the worst, that might have been more of a battle. How might we fare if we get the jump on Furgal?"
"Need I remind you that we're all slowly suffocating in a sack of shit slung over Furgal's shoulder? This is hardly an ideal attack formation."
"That's just the point!" said Dave. "That makes it an even bigger surprise."
"If you have a plan beyond this, I think we're all willing to listen."
Dave turned his head to where he thought Julian was. Not that it mattered, as they were all in the dark, and his eyes were covered in shit. "Julian, can you summon a horse inside this sack?"
"Stop!" said Tim. Then he continued in a calmer voice. "If I may point out a potential flaw in the early stages of your plan, this sack is already pretty fucking crowded."
"Exactly," said Dave. "The sudden manifestation of a horse might be enough to tear this sack apart at the seams."
"And then what? Those of us who survive getting hooved in the fucking face by an understandably confused horse will have the shit pounded out of us by a stone giant."
"Not if we create enough chaos." Julian choked out the words like he'd been trying to breathe as little as possible. "The first horse busts the sack open."
"First horse?" asked Dave.
"Then I keep summoning more horses, both to create confusion and so that we can haul ass out of there. Cooper throws Tim up at Furgal's face, where Tim will shove handfuls of shit into his eyes."
"What's the point of Tim having shit in his eyes?" asked Cooper.
Julian sighed. "I meant Furgal's eyes."
"And what about me?" asked Dave.
"You jump up and grab onto his dick."
"Why do I have to grab onto his dick?"
"Somebody has to. Everyone else already has assignments."
"I'm just not convinced that dick grabbing is a necessary part of this plan. Couldn't I just hug his ankle or something?"
"That's not going to keep him from kicking our asses. Nobody can fight with a dwarf swinging from their dick."
"Dude," said Cooper. "You're starting to sound a little homophobic."
"No I'm not! Julian, is there anything intrinsically homophobic about not wanting to swing from a giant dick?"
"I don't know man. You were ready to hug his ankle. Getting squeamish about touching his dick to save all our lives kind of sounds like textbook homophobia to me."
"Fuck you! Who made you our Minister of Morality anyway? If I was homophobic, wouldn't I rather swing from a giant dick then take one up the ass?"
"You make an interesting point."
Now that Julian put it that way, it did sound like a pretty fucked up thing to say.
"Dude!" said Cooper. "Are you selling us all out for some stone giant cock?"
"He's probably still holding out hope that they're eight-year-olds," said Tim.
Julian had used his Diplomacy skill on the whole party, and they'd swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
"You know what?" said Dave. "Fuck all you guys! You want to do this stupid plan. Have at it. I'll swing from giant dick if that's what it takes. Let's go."
"Sorry, Dave," said Julian. "The plan only works if everyone does their part."
"Just summon your stupid horse."
Julian's feet pushed against Dave's breastplate as he positioned himself to cast the spell.
"Horse!"
Dave's head was shoved deeper into the shit as his entire body was pressed against the thick unyielding hide of the sack. Though his ears were clogged with shit, he had no trouble hearing the frightened horse scream as its hooves pounded his backplate.
The sack descended quickly, sandwiching Dave between the hard ground and the weight of his three companions and a horse. He hoped it would be enough to crush him to death before he drowned in Cooper's shit. But it was not to be.
The horse's weight suddenly disappeared, and Dave was able to lift his face out of the shit puddle at the bottom of the sack, the top of which was now open.
Furgal glared down at the four of them, his hands on his hips. The tip of his penis seemed to be glaring at Dave specifically, but that could have been Dave's imagination.
The horse was outside of Dave's extremely limited field of vision, but he could hear it galloping away.
"That was an unkind trick," said Furgal. "You might have thrown out my back." He bent over. When he stood back up, he was holding a bowling ball sized stone in his hand and squinting off into the distance.
"Oh no," cried Juilan. "Please –"
Furgal hurled the stone, and the sound of galloping stopped shortly afterward. He looked back down at the sack.
"We have arrived."
That was just as well. The sack had held together, ruining Julian's plan, which required a bit more freedom of movement than they currently had.
Tim hopped out first. Julian crawled out after him. Dave and Cooper rolled around in the sack of sweaty shit-paste for a moment, trying to untangle their limbs.
The outside air smelled heavily of shit, but was absolutely refreshing compared to the air inside the sack.
A massive stone house, similar in style to those in The Flintstones, towered over Dave. There was no door, but Dave supposed that stone giants don't have to worry too much about people wandering in and stealing their shit.
The few pieces of furniture Dave saw as they followed their host through the house were made of tree trunks or boulders, leveled off and polished at heights suited to their purposes. An arrangement of three stumps around a five foot tall cube of stone was easily identifiable as a primitive but functional dining set.
Furgal led Dave, Julian, Cooper, and Tim through the doorway at the back of the house. They followed his bare stony ass, no one willing to make the first move in the assault they'd hastily planned.
They came to the edge of a pit, roughly the dimensions of an Olympic sized swimming pool, only deeper. The floor of the pit was more of the same rocky dirt that seemed to be native to this area, but the stonework lining the sides was some of the smoothest masonry Dave had ever seen. The dwarf in him appreciated the craftsmanship, though he suspected the attention to detail was meant to make climbing out nigh-impossible.
Dave suddenly realized something else. There was still no sign of the two sons. They still had a four-on-one advantage against Furgal. Another advantage was that Furgal was standing right on the edge of the pit. One good shove, and they might buy enough time for Julian to summon some more horses. The odds were still slim, but Dave thought they were better than making it out of that pit alive once they got into it.
Tim, Julian, and Cooper seemed to be thinking the same thing. They all traded glances and nods, but all seemed hesitant to make the first move. A better opportunity than the one they had right now wasn't likely to present itself, so Dave took the initiative.
"NOW!" Dave ran at Furgal, his arms raised as high as he could raise them to give the stone giant a push in the ass.
"Horse!" cried Julian.
"Fuck," said Tim, running in front of Furgal over toward Cooper. Furgal gave him a gentle kick into the pit while Dave pushed ineffectively on his ass.
"Fuck!" Tim repeated from the bottom of the pit.
Cooper narrowed his eyes at Dave, shook his head, and grabbed for Furgal's arm.
Furgal waved his arm out of the way, then shoved Cooper into the pit.
"Goddammit, Dave!" said Cooper from the bottom of the pit.
Dave lowered his arms as Furgal turned to face him and Julian.
"I'll just let myself down." Julian jumped into the pit, and Cooper grunted as he caught him.
Furgal glared down at Dave. "I do not approve of your trickery. You fight without honor."
From his brief time knowing Furgal, Dave knew that the penalty for dishonor could be as severe as getting beaten to death with a bag of rocks. He followed Julian's strategy of jumping into the pit.
His legs buckled, landing him hard on his ass. It hurt a lot, but his friends' glares following him down as they made no move to catch him also stung.
"I hope you find your accommodations suitable," Furgal said, now towering twenty feet above them.
Cooper looked around the pit. "This is our accommodations?"
"You shall have everything you need to be comfortable. As you can see, there is plenty of room to run around. I shall return soon with your food and water bowls."
"Food and water bowls?" said Tim. "We're not fucking dogs, you know!"
Furgal furrowed his brow and squinted down at Tim. "I would never ask you to do that."
Before Tim could replay the exchange in his head, Furgal continued. "Behave yourselves. I must tend to supper before my sons come home." He looked at the sky and sniffed the air. "I fear coming rain is in the wind."
"What the fuck, Dave?" said Tim once Furgal retreated back to the house.
"What did I do?"
"You didn't follow the plan. You didn't even give us time to get into position. Cooper was supposed to throw me up to his face so I could rub shit in his eyes, remember?"
"That plan was bullshit and you all know it."
"But your ass-grab plan was foolproof."
"Yeah," said Cooper. "You were supposed to swing from his dick, not fondle his cheeks."
Dave pushed himself up and rubbed the ache out of his own ass. "I saw an opportunity and I took it. I thought it would be better to push him into the pit and make a run for it. If we'd all pushed at the same time –"
"How could we all push at the same time when you didn't tell anyone that we were all supposed to push at the same time? You think we can read minds? Cooper can't even read fucking words!"
"Hey," said Cooper. "Don't take this shit out on me. This is Dave's fault!"
Tim nodded and held up his hands. "I'm sorry. You're right."
Dave wiped a clump of shit off his forehead and flung it on the ground between Cooper and Tim. "How the hell is this –"
"We need to get the fuck out of here," said Tim, scratching his head in thought and completely ignoring Dave. "Who knows when Furgal's sons are going to come home?"
"We might have more pressing concerns," said Julian. "Or at least more immediate, depending on when they arrive."
"What could possibly be weighing on your mind more heavily than us getting raped to death by giants?" Tim looked right, then left, then up, then back at Julian. "If this is about your goddamn bird gone missing again, Furgal's sons are going to have to pull my foot out of your ass before they have their way with you."
"Ravenus is fine. I told him to fly off while Furgal was beating Hollingsworth to death."
"So what's this other great concern of yours?"
Julian looked away like he knew his answer wasn't going to be well received. "Rain."
"Are you fucking with me right now?" asked Tim. "Look at us! We are literally covered in shit. If there was ever a time we needed the gods to piss down some rain on us –"
"Oh shit, Julian's right." Dave suddenly knew where Julian was going with this.
Tim shook his head. "Unbelievable. You're more covered in shit than any of us. You're more shit than Dave right now, and you're actually worried about a little rain?"
"Rain doesn't just wash off shit. It washes off chalk."
Tim balled his fists like he was going beyond flabbergasted. He opened his mouth to speak, but realized their meaning before he uttered a word. "Okay, fair point. But I'm still more concerned about getting raped to death by giants."
"All we need to do is get out of a hole," said Dave. "How hard could this be?"
Tim looked annoyed. "If you've got any ideas, spit them out."
"We could get on each other's shoulders."
"That could get me out. Maybe Julian. Cooper, could you throw us that high?"
Cooper looked up at the edge of the pit. "I could get you up there with no problem. If I used my Barbarian Rage, I might be able to get Julian as well. No way I can hurl Dave's fat ass that high. So that's about the same as the shoulder idea."
"You've got a bunch of ranks in the Climb skill," said Tim. "Couldn't you climb out with a good enough roll?"
"I'm not fucking Spiderman. The wall is perfectly smooth. There's nothing to grab a hold of."
Dave began to feel uncomfortable that everyone was discussing a plan in which the best-case scenario left him here, alone, to be raped by giants. "There's still the matter of –"
"I've got it!" said Julian. He looked very excited. "Cooper throws me and Tim out of the pit. I'll summon a horse. We tie one end of a rope to the horse, and throw the other end down to you guys."
Tim narrowed his eyes at Julian. "Your plan involves a rope?"
"Yes."
"Then why not make up a plan involving a helicopter? It would be a lot more awesome, and no less impossible, considering we don't have either of those things."
"We could tie all our clothes together," suggested Dave.
Tim shook his head. "That wouldn't be nearly long enough, and standing around naked will send the wrong message to our rapists."
"Guys," said Julian. "I was thinking we might just try to find some rope. This is somebody's house, after all. How far-fetched does it seem that they'd have some rope lying around."
Dave sucked in air through his teeth. "That's pretty risky. If Furgal comes back and one of us is missing, we're not going to be unsupervised again. I think we should keep brainstorming."
"Ravenus!" said Julian in another revelatory exclamation.
Dave and Tim rolled their eyes.
"Right here, sir," said Ravenus, peeking over the edge of the pit. "What can I do for you?"
Julian looked up. "There you are. Are you okay?"
"A little bloated, perhaps. But my hangover seems to have gone." Ravenus looked at Julian, Dave, Cooper, and Tim. "You lot have looked better, if you don't mind me saying so. Smelled better, too."
"We were carried here in a bag of shit."
"That is unfortunate, sir."
"Listen, buddy. We need a really big favor."
"Anything, sir. It is my pleasure to serve you."
"We need you to find us a rope."
"A rope, sir?"
"Yes. Or a chain, or a cord, or anything rope-like. Even a vine might do in a pinch."
Ravenus scratched at the ground with one talon. "I'll do my best, but –" He stopped scratching and his jet black bird eyes seemed to light up. "I know just the thing! I'll be right back!" He stretched out his big black wings and flew off before anyone could react.
"Excellent," said Julian. "Now we just hope he comes back before –"
A familiarly thunderous crash of rocks came from behind them. Dave turned around just in time to see Furgal's giant dick hurtling down toward him like a Tomahawk missile. He shielded his face with both arms until he felt the ground shake under the giant's feet. Thankfully, he didn't feel a big cock-slap to the head as well.
Behind Furgal sat his extremely durable leather sack, bulging again with what sounded like rocks when he'd tossed it in before he jumped in himself. Was that to be taken as a warning?
"Have you made yourselves comfortable?"
"Quite, thank you," said Julian before Tim or Cooper could answer honestly.
"Excellent." Furgal sat on his sack of stones. "I saw my sons approaching from the east horizon. They should be here momentarily."
Dave held in a whimper and hoped Julian could work some Diplomacy or horse-based miracle.
"Have they been out working?" asked Julian. "Or perhaps in school?"
Now who's hoping they're eight-year-olds?
Furgal scratched the back of his neck and sighed. "My sons and I do not see eye to eye on many things. They lead a queer lifestyle of which I do not approve."
"And you shouldn't!" Dave blurted out.
"Dave!" Julian whispered harshly. "Don't –"
"No!" Dave cut him off. Do you not realize that I'm only trying to save our asses? In the most literal sense of the phrase? "You are right to disapprove. That goes against the will of the gods."
Furgal's face scrunched up in confusion like rippled lava rock. "Against the will of the gods? I don't see how –"
"With all due respect, sir. I am a cleric."
"Do you have children, dwarven cleric?"
Dave shook his head and muttered, "No." He heard the distinct sound of a facepalm coming from Julian's direction and realized he'd just missed out on an opportunity to foster empathy between them. "I mean –"
"John and John are identical twins, you see."
"Both named John?" Tim asked.
"That is correct."
"Then how do you tell them apart?"
"I do not have to, for they are both named John." Furgal tapped his temple as if showing off his own cleverness.
Tim shrugged. "That's as far as I give a shit."
"They were named for their mother," Furgal continued. "She died while giving birth to them. Stone giant twins are a rarity, as they are quite large individually. Passing just one through the... orifice... can be a traumatic experience."
"You don't fucking say," Tim muttered under his breath.
"Would you shut up!" whispered Julian. "You're going to get us all killed."
"That's kinda what I'm going for at this point."
"Raising two sons alone is no easy task. Perhaps I indulge them too much, but I find it best to let them seek their own path while giving what guidance I can."
"This goes beyond indulgence," said Dave. "You are setting those boys up for an eternity of damnation, suffering in the deepest pits of Hell!"
Furgal squinted at him. "What god, exactly, did you say you are a cleric of?"
"I, um..."
"Father?" called a booming voice from inside the house. It did not sound like the voice of an eight-year-old. "Where are you?"
"I'm out back," Furgal called back to his son. "Come, both of you. I have a gift for you."
After some heavy and swift footsteps that sounded like garbage trucks falling out of the sky, two massive shadows blocked out the sun, followed by a seismic crash which knocked Dave back down on his ass. When the dust settled, two identical stone-skinned men stood next to their father.
The one on the left, presumably John, wore a yellow toga, whereas the one on the right, presumably also John, wore a pink toga. Each of them had a leather satchel slung over their shoulders. Their faces were identical to each other, but different enough from their father's such that Dave thought he could see some of their mother in them. They gawked down at Dave and his companions with wide-eyed wonder.
"What are they?" said John.
"Can we keep them?" said John.
Furgal smiled kindly and placed his hands on his sons' shoulders. "They're yours as long as they last. Now take off those ridiculous clothes."
The two Johns hung their heads. "Yes, father."
As they set their satchels on the ground and pulled off their colorful togas, Dave crab-crawled back to his friends. He noticed that Furgal looked anxious at the sight of his sons' listless obedience.
Furgal's gaze suddenly met Dave's, and Dave was unable to conceal his terror, both at having been directly stared at and by the size of the Johns' now exposed Johnsons. If anything, they were even bigger than their father's.
Furgal disengaged with Dave and addressed his sons. "Listen, lads. Our new guests appear to be nervous. Perhaps, before your training begins, you might ease their minds with a song?"
The Johns' eyes lit up.
"Do you mean it, father?"
"Oh, thank you!"
"Yes!" cried Julian. "We'd love to hear a song." He nudged Dave. "Wouldn't we?"
Dave nodded vigorously. "Absolutely. We love songs."
John on the left reached down for his satchel, but stopped. He stood straight again and frowned. "We have played much today, and I feel I should clean my pipes before performing."
"No!" cried Tim. "Just sing us a goddamn song!" Anything to stall for a few minutes and hope that the three of them had simultaneous heart attacks.
"You are right, brother," said John on the right. "And I must rub my horn with oil."
Cooper groaned. "At least that's a step in the right direction."
"Sorry, lads," said Furgal. "We've no time for that. I must finish preparing supper, and you must begin your training."
"Oh, come on, man!" said Dave. "Have a heart. At least let him rub his horn with oil."
Furgal crossed his arms and glared down at Dave. "Was it not you, dwarf, who suggested I was being overindulgent?"
"But surely it doesn't take but a minute to let the boys oil their horns." If they oiled them well enough, there was always the chance they might clean their pipes prematurely.
"Only John needs to oil his horn," said John on the left. "I must clean my pipes."
Dave grimaced. "Yeah. You mentioned that already. I'm just saying, as a matter of courtesy –"
Julian put his hand on Dave's shoulder to shut him up. "May we see your horn?"
"Dude," said Cooper. "Are you fucking blind?"
"Father?" said John on the right.
Furgal sighed. "Very well. Make it quick."
John reached into his satchel and pulled out a hollowed animal horn with holes bored into the side. He held it up for Dave and his friends to see. "I made it myself. This is real dragonhorn."
"And here are my pipes," said John on the left. "They're made of real... bamboo."
Furgal shook his head. "Stone giants who wish to be bards. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Playtime is over. Put down your toys and pick up a stone."
The Johns quickly put their instruments on the ground and grabbed stones from their father's sack.
"So..." Julian spoke up. "What, exactly, is our role in your sons' training?"
"You are to be moving targets, of course."
Dave exhaled a long sigh of relief. "That's so much better than –"
Julian slapped him in the side of the head.
"FUCK!" said Tim, leaping out of the way of a stone as it whirred past Dave's head.
"Doof!" said Cooper when the stone hit him in the gut, sending him five feet backward and landing him on his back.
"Moving targets!" Furgal scolded John on the right. "If we wanted to practice with stationary targets, there are enough of those lying around all over E'cha. I went to a lot of trouble to acquire these people. It's all for nothing if you kill them before you get any practice."
"Sorry, father."
Julian knelt next to Cooper. "Are you okay?"
"Awesome," said Cooper. He raised his hand with a thumbs up and called out, "Nice shot, John!"
Furgal nodded. "Good. Now help your friend up, and all of you start running."
Dave and Julian pushed the stone off Cooper's bruised belly and helped him to his feet. Tim was already at the wall farthest from the stone giants.
SMASH!
A stone exploded against the wall where Tim's head had just been a half-second before.
"Jesus Christ!" cried Tim, running along the bottom of the wall as fast as he could.
"The littlest one is quick," observed John on the right.
Dave, Julian, and Cooper ran for the far wall. Cooper and Julian were a lot faster than Dave, making him the easiest target by far. Fortunately, it appeared as though the Johns were trying to impress their father with more difficult targets. Stone shrapnel exploded against the wall at points clearly intended for Julian, Cooper, and Tim, but none of them scored a direct hit.
THUNK!
Just when Dave was about to reach the wall, a force like God's own pool cue hit his backplate, slamming him face first into the meticulously polished wall.
Between that and the hard ass-landing from jumping into the pit before, Dave thought he deserved a Cure Light Wounds spell.
He touched his temple. "I heal thee." After a brief moment of agony, when his spine restructured itself, Dave was feeling back to not horribly shitty.
"Very good, boys," said Furgal. "I must finish supper now. Keep practicing until the sack is empty. I'll call you when supper's ready."
After Furgal retreated into the house, the rocks kept flying. Julian and Tim managed not to get hit very much, due to their smaller body styles and higher Dexterity scores. Cooper got hit enough times for Dave to use up one of his Cure Light Wounds spells on him. And Dave, of course, got knocked around like a tin can being kicked by a group of kids in a schoolyard.
When the last of his spells was gone, Dave kept a wary eye on the sack, hoping it ran out of rocks before he ran out of Hit Points.
Fortunately, for Dave anyway, the Johns focused their last few efforts at Tim, who had proven the hardest to hit, being the tiniest and nimblest. Surprisingly enough, Tim seemed to be enjoying it. He taunted the stone giants, grabbing his crotch and giving them the finger just before tumbling out of the way of a flying stone. There was every chance one of the Johns could roll a Natural 20 and splatter the wall in halfling paste, but it was still so much better than being torn in half by stone giant cock.
Finally, the sack was empty, and they were all still alive. Sweaty, out of breath, covered in stone dust, and unsure whether or not they'd survive another round, but still alive.
"We should try to get these guys on our side," Dave whispered when he got close enough for the others to hear. "Convince them to let us go."
Tim threw a chipped piece of rock at Dave's head. "I'm sure that'll go over just as well as that Pat Robertson bullshit you tried to sell on their father."
"Yeah," said Cooper. "That was kinda fucked up."
"I was trying to... Never mind." Dave didn't have time to explain. "We've got to try something, right?"
The others nodded. Tim looked at Dave. "But Julian does all the talking. He's got the highest Charisma score, and you've already demonstrated that you suck."
"Fine."
They walked over to John and John, who were folding their togas and packing them into their satchels.
"You boys did well out there," said Julian.
"Thank you," said John. Dave wasn't sure which one. "You made some impressive dodges."
Julian shrugged. "I did my best. But did you ever stop and think that the reason we're still alive right now is that your hearts just aren't in rock throwing?"
The John's looked at each other, then back down at Julian. "Your words are true. Our real passion is music."
"That's what I've come to understand. I hope to get to hear you play."
Dave was getting impatient. Julian had just missed an opportunity to steer the conversation to their asshole of a father. It was wise to let Julian continue to do the talking, but a little nudge in the right direction couldn't hurt anything.
"But your father discourages your musical ambitions, does he?"
Tim and Julian flashed glares at him.
John frowned. "He does not believe there to be a prosperous future in music for two stone giants. He says the world is a cruel and dangerous place, and we would do better to spend our time learning how to defend ourselves and our people."
Dave felt a pinprick of cold on his forearm. He looked down and saw a drop of water had landed there.
Shit.
Looking up, he saw that dark clouds were rolling in from the west. It was already starting.
"Your dad sounds like he really cares about you two," said Julian.
"Bullshit!" Dave blurted out. The clock was ticking and they needed to get out of here pronto. "You can't let that old bastard stomp all over your dreams! A bard from our homeland said that you only get one shot. One opportunity. One... I forget. Something about spaghetti."
Other John pointed sternly at Dave. "You shall not speak dishonorably about our father."
"Yeah, Dave," said Tim. "Why don't you try not speaking at all."
Dave felt the chill of another raindrop on the back of his neck. "He speaks dishonorably of you! He told me that he thinks you're a couple of queers!"
"DAVE!" shrieked Tim. "Shut. The. Fuck. Up."
"You need to stand up to him," Dave continued. "Every minute you waste throwing rocks at us is one minute you could have been practicing your art, one more minute between you and your dream."
John rubbed his chin, causing a rough grinding sound. "There is logic in your words."
Dave smirked at Julian. You're not the only one who can use Diplomacy, it seems. Then he looked back at one of the Johns. "You need to let him know you mean business. Let him know you really mean it with an act of defiance."
The two Johns looked at one another, then back at Dave. "What sort of act of defiance would you suggest?"
They were putty in Dave's hands.
"You set us free, of course. Then you go in there and tell him your rock-throwing days are over."
Both of the Johns took a moment to scratch their heads in thought.
Julian, Tim, and Cooper looked genuinely surprised. Julian especially so. Dave gestured to the Johns, welcoming Julian to take the lead if he had any diplomatic ideas to nudge them over to their side of the fence.
Julian opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he started to say was drowned out by Furgal's voice from inside the house.
"John! John! Supper's ready!"
The twins grabbed their satchels and tossed them out of the pit, hurriedly climbing up after them.
"Wait!" cried Dave. "Aren't you going to let us out of here?"
One of the Johns looked down at him. "We cannot betray our father. But we shall discuss what you said over supper."
"No! Don't do that!" Dave looked frantically around the pit for something to hold their attention a little longer, and found the pipes and horn lying on the ground. "You forgot your instruments!"
Too little too late. They were already back inside the house.
"What the fuck was that, Dave?" asked Tim. "Would it kill you to keep your big hairy face shut for five goddamn minutes?"
Dave backed away from his friends, who all looked like they wanted to kick his ass. "I felt raindrops. I started to panic."
"I was finessing the conversation with my Diplomacy skill," said Julian. "It's a subtle art. You can't just bring up turning on their father like that. You have to ease them into it and let them think it's their idea."
"That's bullshit. You saw their faces. They were thinking about it. I had them on the ropes!"
Cooper stopped advancing. "Speaking of ropes, where the fuck is your bird, Julian?"
Julian looked skyward. "There he is!"
Dave followed his gaze, and was immediately struck in the face with a pile of something snakelike and slimy. He danced and screamed and tried to fling it away, but the creature clung to his arms, face, and chest. "Get it off! Get it off! Get it –"
"Dave!" said Tim. "Chill the fuck out for a second."
Dave did his best to chill the fuck out while Cooper pulled the sticky creature off of Dave, letting it fall into a purple pile of slime-rope at his feet.
He was still shaking as he pointed down at the veiny bloody mess. "What in the fuck is that?"
Julian turned around to face Ravenus, who had perched atop the narrow end of John's horn. "Ravenus, where did you get that?"
"From the gentleman we traveled here with, sir. Sorry it took me so long. I had to brush the dirt off his body with naught but my wings. Then, of course, there was some digging and cutting to be done. My talons weren't made for this kind of precision work, but I did my best."
Tim stepped back from the pile of gore. "Oh man, that's so gross."
Julian ran his fingers through his hair. "We can't use this, Ravenus. It's too slippery to climb."
"It will dry out in time, sir." Ravenus looked up at the darkening sky. "Then again, it does look like rain."
"Shit!" said Dave. "Shit. Shit. Shit."
"What's going on?" asked Cooper, who was unable to understand the Elven tongue.
Dave pointed at the gore pile. "That's Hollingsworth's intestines."
Cooper raised his eyebrows. "Goddamn. That bird is one savage motherfucker when he wants to be."
"THEY SAID WHAT?" boomed Furgal from inside the house.
"Oh shit," said Dave.
Julian gestured for Ravenus to fly away. Ravenus took off.
"Cover it up!" said Tim. "We're in deep enough shit as it is without having to explain a pile of intestines on the ground."
Dave brushed dirt over Hollingsworth's bowels. Being all slimy and sticky, the dirt clung pretty well, and he soon had what looked like an innocuous pile of grey dirt.
"You!" Furgal pointed at Dave from the edge of the pit nearest the house.
Dave stumbled backwards. Why was this guy always singling him out?
Furgal jumped down into the pit, his feet landing hard on either side of John's upturned horn. "What deceit have you been filling my sons' heads with?"
"I didn't," whimpered Dave. "I haven't... It wasn't me!"
Furgal stomped angrily toward Dave. "How dare you accuse me of – Wha!" He slipped on Hollingsworth's intestines, causing him to fall backward. His head came down even harder on John's horn, the narrow end of which burst out of his right eye socket.
"Holy fucking shit," said Cooper.
Tim shook his head. "We are so fucked."
"Father?" called one of the Johns.
"Hurry up," Tim said to Julian. "Distract them. We can't let them see this."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Something diplomatic. Just hurry before they –"
"NO!" cried John.
"FATHER!" cried other John.
"Fuck," muttered Tim.
The two Johns jumped down into the pit, both glaring at Dave. "What have you done?"
"I didn't. It was an accident. I..." Only then did he realize that he was once again covered in Hollinigsworth's bowels, flung at him when Furgal slipped. This did not lend credibility to his argument.
"You murdered our father!"
Dave flung the intestines down and gambled their lives on an untrained Bluff check. "I did no such thing! That goes against my oath as a Master Healer."
Cooper snorted. "What the fuck is he –"
Julian elbowed Cooper.
"In fact," Dave continued, "I'm the only one standing between your father's life and death. But I'm going to need your help."
The two Johns halted their threatening advance, tears welling up in their eyes. "What can we do?"
"First, prop him up against that wall."
"Um..." said Cooper. "Isn't that exactly the opposite of what you're supposed to do in these situations?"
"Shut up, Cooper!" said Dave, Julian, and Tim.
The two Johns lifted their father by the upper arms and dragged him back to the wall, where they sat him upright against it.
"Now I'll need some damp towels."
"We have no towels," said John.
"Use your togas," Dave snapped at them. "I'll also need some boiling water, a needle and some thread."
John cradled his head in his hands. "I fear we don't have the necessary –"
Other John grabbed his brother by the arm. "Mother's old sewing kit. Father said he could never bear to throw it away."
First John wiped his tears away. "Their love goes beyond the grave. She is here in spirit, to save our father's life!"
"Time is a factor here," said Dave. "You must hurry!"
John and John climbed out of the pit and ran into the house.
Cooper wiped a tear away from his own eye. "Did anybody else get chills from that?"
"Hurry up!" said Dave. "We have to get out of here before they get back."
Tim needed no such invitation. He was on top of Furgal's head before Dave had finished his sentence. With a little boost from Julian, he was able to climb out of the pit. Julian grabbed the edge and climbed out after him.
Dave climbed as far up as he could, but wasn't going to be able to reach the edge of the wall without Cooper's help.
"Dude," said Cooper. "What about Furgal?"
"He's got a horn through his fucking brain. He'd dead as shit. Help me out of here."
Cooper shook his head. "You're a cold son of a bitch, Dave." He climbed up onto Furgal's shoulders. "I'm really angry."
Cooper's Barbarian Rage took immediate effect, bulging out his muscles and reddening his eyes. It was off-putting, and when he reached for Dave, Dave wasn't sure that Cooper wasn't going to kick his ass.
With a grunt, Cooper hefted Dave out of the pit, then climbed out after him. With a prolonged fart, his body came out of Rage and deflated back down to its normal size.
"Horse!" said Julian, then repeated the incantation, producing two riding horses, one white and the other brown. "These are my last two spells for the day. We'll have to double up."
Cooper lifted Dave onto the back of Julian's horse, squatted down to let Tim ride piggyback, then hopped onto the other horse.
"Should we soak our togas in warm water or cold –" John stepped out the back door and locked eyes with Dave.
"Horses, go!" cried Julian.
"Warm," Dave shouted as the horses bolted forward, in the off chance the Johns were dumber than Cooper. They weren't.
"John!" said John. "Come quick! They're getting away." He gave chase with his brother following shortly after. They weren't as fast as the horses, but they were making a commendable effort.
Dave's ass was taking a pounding bouncing up and down on Julian's horse, but when he considered the ass-pounding he'd been expecting to take, he couldn't complain.
"Does anyone know which way the portal is?" he shouted over the wind and hooves.
"No!" said Julian. "Wait... Ravenus knows. Ravenus!"
"Right here, sir!" Ravenus took up a wingman position to the right of Julian's galloping horse.
"Which way is the portal that we traveled through?"
"Almost exactly in the opposite direction, sir."
"Shit." Julian called out to Cooper. "We're going the wrong direction!"
Cooper shouted back something that Dave couldn't quite make out except that it had to do with his mom.
"We'll have to circle around!" Julian shouted louder.
Cooper laughed and made a jerking off gesture. Tim slapped him in the back of the head and shouted directly in his ear, at which point Cooper nodded and gave Julian the thumbs up.
Julian guided his horse to the left, narrowly avoiding a thrown rock. Once they completed the turn, Dave had a much better view of the two Johns. His limited ability to dodge flying rocks while on horseback didn't make that much of an advantage.
The twins changed course and began to close the gap between themselves and the horses. They'd probably get within medium throwing range. While horses were faster than any of them, they traveled in a predictable trajectory, and the combination of two people and a horse made for a much larger target than one individual person.
The only bright side that Dave could see was that the Johns were currently unarmed, and would have to scavenge for suitable rocks to throw. There were plenty of rocks lying around on the ground, but the rocks their father had been training them with were all pretty uniform in size and shape. Too big a rock, and they wouldn't be able to throw it. Too small, and their aim might be off.
"There it is, sir!" cried Ravenus, pulling ahead of Julian's horse to take the lead.
The black clouds had moved directly overhead now, and the harder rain had arrived with them. Dave hoped that the horses, being magical in nature, would be less prone to slipping. But his experience with Julian's summoned horses told him that probably wasn't the case.
One of the Johns found a suitable rock, and Dave braced himself for impact. He might have enough Hit Points in him to survive being hit by another rock, but he didn't like his odds of surviving that combined with being thrown off a speeding horse.
Dave squeezed Julian around the waist. "Hurry up, man! He's got another rock!"
"I'm going as fast as I can."
When Dave looked again, he saw that the John with the rock was focused on Cooper's horse. He breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed his grip on Julian.
"What's happening?" asked Julian. "Is everything okay now?"
"No," said Dave. "I, um... just farted."
Twisting his thick dwarven neck around as far as it would twist, Dave was barely able to make out Cooper's horse just as the flying rock smashed into the side of its head.
"Shit!" shouted Cooper as the horse winked out of existence beneath him. He must have been prepared for it, or made a hell of a Reflex Save, as he hit the ground running with Tim still clinging onto his back.
The rain was coming down hard now, and Dave feared they might be too late. "Tell Ravenus to fly through the portal."
Julian looked back at Dave with a disapproving glare.
"Come on, man! If he slams face first into solid rock, that will be the least of his problems once those giants catch up to us!"
Julian nodded, then faced forward again. "Ravenus! Fly through the portal!"
"Right-O, sir!" Ravenus obeyed with unflinching faith in Julian.
Dave flinched though, as his faith was not so solid as the bird zoomed kamikaze-style right at the center of the chalk drawn diagram. Even from where he was, he could see the magical green chalk beginning to streak down the stone.
"Slow down, Ravenus!" cried Julian. "You don't have to go so –" But he was too late. Ravenus disappeared into the rock.
Julian and Dave made it to the portal stone with plenty of time to spare. Cooper, horseless and carrying Tim, would have a closer race against the stone giants. That was, of course, unless they stopped to pick up stones.
The Johns found a nice pile of stones about thirty yards away from the portal. The portal was ten feet off the ground, which made anyone climbing up to it essentially a stationary target for a couple of rounds.
"You go first," said Dave, telling himself he was acting selflessly as he crouched behind Julian's parked horse.
Julian was dancing from side to side, presumably to keep himself recognized as a moving target. "No, you'd better go first. You're slow and heavy. You'll be in everyone's way when Cooper and Tim get here."
What an asshole. Dave was about to object when his horse cover disappeared, replaced by a stone that fell straight to the ground in front of him.
"Fine!" Dave ducked, leaped, and pirouetted as well as any dwarf could be expected to on his way to the large stone under the portal. Finding handholds and footholds suitable to his height, he began to climb. He'd almost reached the top when he heard Julian shout.
"Dave! Watch out!"
Dave looked back just in time to see a rock flying at his head. He ducked, and felt the disrupted air as the rock swooshed over him. Curiously, it made no crashing sound. Dave didn't have too long to ponder that, as the other John's rock hit him square in the backplate.
"Ugh!" he said as he was squashed between flying stone and stationary rock. When his mind was able to process more than Ugh, he realized he was no longer holding onto the wall.
"Ugh," he repeated when he landed on the ground.
"Goddammit, Dave!" said Cooper, nearly tripping over him. "Get the fuck out of the way!" He grabbed Tim off his back with both hands and hurled him, screaming obscenities, through the portal.
"Ow!" said Cooper as a stone hit him in the ass. He bent over and linked his fingers together to make a step for Julian, then hoisted him up until he was able to start crawling through the portal.
While Cooper's arms were raised, one of the Johns took advantage of his undefended belly. A flying stone to the gut sent ripples radiating outward.
"Fuuuuuuck," groaned Cooper as he shat, once again, on Dave's face.
Dave spat some shit out of his mouth. "Son of a... Fuck it. Just help me up, will you?"
Cooper grabbed Dave's arm, pulled him up to his feet, then lifted him up by the waist until Dave was able to grab the bottom edge of the portal and help lift himself through it. Two sets of hands, hopefully Julian and Tim's, grabbed his wrists and pulled him the rest of the way through.
The tavern was full of smoke and shouting.
"What's going on?" asked Dave.
"The rock that flew through busted a bunch of liquor bottles behind the bar," said Tim. "It must have caught on a torch or candle or something. Looks like they got it mostly under control now. Where's Cooper?"
"He should be right behind –" Dave fell face down on the table as Cooper's head came through the portal and into his ass.
"Everyone's here now," said Julian. "Good. Let's move casually toward the front door while everyone is still distracted by the fire."
As it turned out, walking casually through a burning building kind of makes a group stand out.
"HEY!" said the half-orc behind the bar who looked like he'd put a lifetime's worth of skill points into the Asskicking skill. "You're the ones who threw up all over the place earlier, then left without paying your tab."
"Fuck," said Dave.
"Funny thing, sir," said Julian. "Our friend who was with us was supposed to pay the tab."
Tim looked down and shook his head. "That was the most piss-poor attempt at Diplomacy I've ever heard."
The bartender produced a meat cleaver from under the bar. It was worth noting that this establishment didn't offer a lot of snacks on the menu for such a tool to be so readily at hand. He hopped over the bar and sneered at them. "And where is this friend now? He's got quite a bit to pay for."
One of the Johns erupted onto the scene like he'd taken a running dive through the portal.
"There he is," said Julian.
"Mercy of the gods!" cried the bartender as John pulled himself out of the booth. He took a reactionary swing with his meat cleaver, catching John in his great stony forehead. It left a nasty gash, pouring crimson blood down the giant's dusty, tear-streaked face, but appeared to have little effect outside of further pissing him off.
"At least now people will be able to tell them apart," said Cooper.
Dave grabbed Cooper and Julian's wrists and tugged them toward the front entrance. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
Julian hesitated. "Where's Tim?"
"Over here!" called Tim. He was on top of the bar, at the end closest to the exit, holding a half-drunk bottle of beer, probably from someone who had gone to help put out the fire. "Let's go!"
The atmosphere outside the tavern was chaotic. People were shouting, "Fire!" A few others were shouting, "Giants!" Kingsguard soldiers rushed past Dave and his friends to deal with the threat.
"Who's up for a drink?" asked Tim, just before sucking back the last of someone else's beer.
Everyone nodded.
"Whore's Head?" suggested Dave. Having no money on them, and being covered in shit, it seemed like the best option.
"Fuck that," said Tim. "I snagged some coin from the till. Wash the shit off your face in a puddle, and let's class it up a bit." |
5d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | From the Bowels of Hell Hounds | Thank you for your amazing generosity.
Tim had been the one to sell the party on taking this job by describing it as "taking a stroll through the woods and hoping they didn't get mauled by monsters", and argued that "Since that describes pretty much every day we've been in this shitty fantasy world, and remains preferable to the even shittier existence we led back in the real world, we might as well make a little booze money from it."
Julian found it ironic, then, that Tim sat in the back of the wagon, swigging stonepiss from his flask, while Julian, Cooper, and Dave struggled to push the wagon through the mud while the gods of this world saw fit to piss down a torrential rainstorm on them.
In his role as the "face" of the party, owing to his high Charisma score, Julian had convinced their current employer, Mr. Butkus, that they were a competent group of mercenaries capable of escorting him and his wares safely to his destination, so he supposed his thoughts of criticism toward Tim weren't coming from much of a moral high ground.
Ravenus landed on the wagon roof and shook the rain from his feathers. "Moving along, are we sir?"
"Fantastic," said Cooper. "One more fucking freeloader."
Julian shot Cooper a warning glance. "Just take it easy, huh? He weighs next to nothing, and at least he's serving a purpose."
"That's right," said Tim. "I'm keeping lookout. When you don't get torn apart by owlbears or raped by manticores or some shit, you'll have me to thank for giving you the heads up."
"I was talking about Ravenus," said Julian. "You're just a lazy asshole."
"I'm a goddamn halfling! I could barely reach the back of the wagon. How am I supposed to help?"
Cooper grunted as the three of them heaved the back wheels of the wagon over a tree root. "Shutting up would be a step in the right direction."
The wagon started moving again, albeit slowly, now that the horses up front were able to do their jobs. Each hoofstep was a squelch and plop. The wagon wheels cut deep ruts into the mushy ground which soon closed back in on themselves.
Now that his hands were free, Julian grabbed the ends of his serape and flapped as much water as he could out of it. For no reason he could think of, he began to feel slightly aroused. He looked up at Ravenus, with whom he shared an Empathic Link.
"Are you..." Julian cleared his throat. "... feeling okay?"
"Please pardon my lack of control, sir," said Ravenus. "You reminded me of a mating ritual I once witnessed between two tropical birds."
Dave and Tim snickered as blood that had been headed toward Julian's dick changed course and rushed up toward his cheeks.
"What's so funny?" asked Cooper, who was unable to understand the Elven tongue, the only language Ravenus was capable of speaking.
Dave squeezed a gallon of rain and sweat out of his beard. "I think Julian is giving himself a hardon via Ravenus."
Cooper made a face like he was trying to figure out the square root of negative pi. "This is the sort of shit that happens when you take away people's internet porn."
Julian wrapped his still waterlogged serape double layered over his crotch and glared up at Ravenus. "Have you seen anything?"
"Yes, sir. That's why I'm here," said Ravenus enthusiastically. "I've spotted the tower!"
Tim sighed. "Oh thank fuck."
"What are you so relieved about?" asked Dave. "You've done nothing but drink this entire trip."
"And so it stands to reason that I'm nearly out." Tim picked up a clear glass bottle with a long spiraling neck from among the merchant's wares. "Is it wine? Is it lamp oil? Is it... I don't know, fucking unicorn piss? For a second there, I thought I just might have to find out."
Julian slogged ahead to the front of the wagon. "Mr. Butkus! I have good news!"
Collected rain flowed off the sturdy brim of Butkus's black conical hat when he turned to look down at Julian.
"Tell me it be a break in the weather. This rain chills me to the bones." He produced a silver hip flask from an inner pocket of his thick leather coat and took a swig of the contents.
Julian's first thoughts went back to Tim. Sure, Butkus was their employer, and was serving a purpose insofar as someone had to steer the horses, but it seemed like kind of a dick move to complain about the weather when they were all at least as soaked as he was, and having to slog through the mud lifting the wagon over tree roots as well.
"Better than that," said Julian, walking along at the wagon's pace. "My familiar has spotted Count Fabulazzo's tower."
"Aye, that is good news, lad. All this travel has me longing for a rest."
Julian searched his mind for a response other than 'Go fuck yourself''. Taking in Butkus's floppy conical hat and the strange assortment of random liquids, powders, herbs, and things he wasn't able to identify at a casual glance or sniff, Julian had a thought.
"Are you a wizard?" It couldn't hurt to talk shop with a fellow student of the arcane arts.
"Ha!" said Butkus. "Me, a wizard? Mercy of the gods no, boy. I am but a humble courier. I collect what goods I'm told to collect, and deliver them where I'm told to –."
A crack of thunder seemed to split the dark sky, and the accompanying lightning briefly made clear a black tower silhouetted against the clouds. It was like a giant rook, towering over the treetops.
It didn't seem all that far away, but the horses trudged through the semi-liquid terrain for at least another hour before they finally pulled up to the iron gates.
The gate, as well as the fence which stretched out from either side of it, forming a fifty yard perimeter around the tower, were anything but inviting. Barbed spikes topped each vertical bar.
Julian looked for a rope, or a button, or anything that might serve as a doorbell. The gate appeared to be latched, but not locked.
"Open the gate already!" barked Butkus. "Have you not noticed it be pissing down rain?"
"Actually, I have noticed that," Julian snapped back. He had quite a few ranks in the Diplomacy skill, but he was to exhausted at present to bother using it on Butkus. "My clothes are heavier than I am right now. But I wondered if it was rude to just let ourselves in."
"No ruder than forcing our host to come out in this weather."
Julian begrudgingly supposed that was fair. The gate made a small clanging sound when he touched the latch, but that was soon drowned out by the vicious barking of what sounded like a pack of rabid dire Dobermans.
He let go of the latch like it was made out of AIDS-infected spiders and jumped back from the gate.
The horses didn't seem to like the fast-approaching barking any more than Julian did, whinnying and splashing mud with their restless hooves.
"Holy shit!" said Cooper from the back end of the wagon. It was too delayed to have been a reaction to the barking, but what else could –
Then Julian saw them. Three sets of glowing red eyes bouncing up and down and moving toward him from the other side of the gate as the barking grew louder. Mesmerized, he took another step back, hoping the gate was strong enough to keep whatever those eyes belonged to safely contained.
It wasn't until they were almost right up on the gate that Julian could make out their forms, and was kind of relieved to find out they actually had forms at all.
Three dogs, covered in reddish-brown fur, jumped up against the gate bars like their asses were on fire. Their abdomens were thin, like Greyhounds, but their chests and hind legs bulged with muscles like Rottweilers who hit the gym six days a week.
Fortunately, the gate was doing its job, keeping those red-eyed monster dogs on their side of it. Still, Julian thought he might flex his Charisma score and try to calm the beasts down with an untrained Handle Animal check.
He put up his hands non-threateningly. "Hey guys, take it easy. We don't mean any – FUCK!"
Julian dove for cover behind the horses as two of the three dogs stopped barking and vomited plumes of fire at him.
The remaining dog's barking was drowned out by equine screams as orange light illuminated the mud around him. The heat of the flames was just short of unbearable. The back of Julian's drenched serape felt like it was near boiling.
"Stop that!" shouted a voice from behind the dogs. "Yippy! Pippy! Skippy! SIT!"
The dogs reluctantly stopped barking and breathing fire. Just in time, too. The horses, having provided all the cover they were going to provide, collapsed on top of each other in a pile of scorched hair and exposed, charred bones.
"Jesus Christ, Julian!" said Cooper, appearing from the other side of the wagon. "What the fuck did you do to those horses?"
"I didn't do anything!"
Butkus glared down at Julian. "That will be coming out of your pay, elf."
"With all due respect, sir. I was trying to save my life."
"And you did so at the expense of my horses. It only be fair that you –"
"Please, please, gentlemen!" said the middle-aged man on the other side of the gate. He looked like a younger Jack Palance, if Jack Palance were ever inclined to wear a shiny green shirt and golden MC Hammer pants. The three red-eyed dogs sat calmly at his feet, staring at Julian through a circular curtain of rainwater flowing off the edge of an invisible circular disc above the man's head. "I shall compensate you for the horses. Now please, come in."
"Are you Mr. Fabulazzo?" asked Julian.
"Count Fabulazzo," corrected the count. "Please come in out of the rain and warm yourselves by my hearth."
"Your dogs," said Julian. "Are they..."
"Hell hounds," said Count Fabulazzo. "It's an unfortunate name for such gentle creatures."
Julian looked down at the smoldering horse remains, catching Ravenus beak deep in an eye socket.
"I'm in the process of training them," the count explained. "They tend to get excited at the sight of new faces. I assure you they will do you no harm."
Julian would have preferred it if the count would lock the dogs in a kennel or something, but he was in no position to make such demands of their host. His word would have to be good enough.
When Julian touched the latch again, one of the dogs snarled as it snorted small flames from its nostrils.
"Hush, Pippy!" snapped the count. The hell hound whined and lay down.
As satisfied as he felt he was likely to be, Julian unlatched the gate. The iron hinges screamed as he pushed it open. To his great relief, the hell hounds remained at their master's feet.
Butkus strolled through the gate. "You lads can unload the wagon. I'd move it closer to the tower for you, but thanks to the cowardly elf, I've no horses with which to pull it."
"It's not cowardly to avoid being roasted alive," said Julian.
"A fine lot of good your excuses will do us when it comes time to travel back to Cardinia in the morning."
"I've got it covered."
"Is that right? You plan to pull the wagon yourself? You look about as strong as you are brave."
That was about as much as Julian could tolerate. "You want a horse? I'll give you a goddamn horse." He pointed at the ground in front of Butkus. "Horse!"
A beautiful white stallion popped into existence right in front of Butkus.
As if a switch had been flipped, all three hell hounds sprang to their feet and bounded at the magically summoned horse.
"No!" cried Julian, but the hell hounds weren't taking orders from him.
The horse screamed and reared up on its hind legs, inadvertently making it easier for the first hound to bite it right in the junk. The second one jumped up and grabbed the horse by the throat.
That was more than the horse could take. It disappeared just as the third hound lunged for its hind leg, passed through the suddenly horseless space and hurtled straight at Butkus.
"Whaaa!" cried Butkus as the confused demon dog flew into him. He fell to the ground covering his face with his forearms. "Please! No! Make it stop!" The dog had clearly been in the mood for some fresh horse meat, and had no interest in Butkus except to lift up its leg and pee on him.
Smoke rose from the piss where it landed on Butkus's thick leather coat.
"Yippy!" snapped Count Fabulazzo. "Stop that. Get back here right now."
All three dogs returned to their master, who squatted down to stroke their fur and tell them what good boys they were.
Butkus struggled to stand up on his shaking legs. He pointed accusingly at Julian. "Y-y-you did that on p-p-purpose!"
"I most certainly did not," said Julian. "But I commend you on how bravely you handled yourself."
Butkus gasped at the still-smoldering pee stain on his jacket, which hadn't quite burnt all the way through the thick leather. He patted it out with his rain-soaked hat until it stopped smoking, then glared at Julian.
"That's coming out of your pay."
"Like fuck it is." Julian had used all of the Diplomacy skill that he was going to use on this guy. "We escorted you here, pushed your wagon, and delivered your goods safely to their destination."
"Not all of them," said Cooper, standing at the back of the wagon. The expression on his face said, "We might have a bit of a problem."
"What is it now?" said Julian as he, Dave, and Butkus joined Cooper.
Tim lay on the wagon floor, his eyes unfocused, grinning back at them with his hand down his pants.
Flask in one hand and dick in the other, he said, "Hey, man."
"I think he drank some of the yellow liquid in that bottle," said Cooper.
Butkus gasped again. "Not the unicorn piss!"
"Wow," said Dave. "Tim called that one."
"Do you know how rare and difficult to collect that is?"
"How do you even approach a unicorn about that?" asked Cooper.
Butkus scowled at Tim. "This is coming out of your pay!"
Tim grinned at him. "I love you, man."
"Friends!" said Count Fabulazzo. "Let us not bicker over a few drops of unicorn urine. I shall feed my hounds with your dead horses and we'll call it even. You are all weary from travel and irritable from the inclement weather. Please come inside, dry off, and fill your bellies. Then we shall see how much there is to quarrel over."
Julian and Butkus begrudgingly nodded at one another, then Julian turned to Cooper to deal with some practical matters.
"Do you think you could throw these horses over the fence and pull the wagon up closer to the tower?"
"Sure." Cooper sighed. "I'm really angry." His muscles inflated like his body was sucking back in a week's worth of farts. Once his Barbarian Rage had taken full effect, he grabbed one of the horses by its front hooves and started to spin around.
The hell hounds' fire had burnt a gaping hole in the horse's skin, allowing horse innards to fly out as Cooper gathered the momentum he needed to hurl it over the fence.
"Goddammit, Cooper," said Dave, his face, beard, and chest slick with horse guts.
The other horse had taken most of the fire to the face and, thankfully, its brain didn't fly out as Cooper threw it over the fence.
The hell hounds were elated when Count Fabulazzo gave them the green light to tear into the horse carcasses. Expecting them to rip the meat from the bone as most animals would, Julian was surprised to see the dogs devour random parts of the horses indiscriminately. Their powerful jaws crunched through bones like they were no more than almonds inside a piece of chocolate.
Satisfied that the dogs were distracted, Count Fabulazzo motioned for Cooper to pull the wagon through the gate, then hurried to close and latch it again once everyone had come through.
By the time Cooper had backed the wagon to the large side door of the tower, there was nothing left of the horses but eight hooves. One of the hounds looked at Julian and burped out a small flame.
Cooper came out of his Barbarian Rage with a long, mostly steady fart. It was interrupted a few times by "more than fart," which splattered and plopped between his feet, adding blobs of yellow to the otherwise brown muddy earth.
"By the gods!" cried Butkus. "Have you no decency?"
"He has a low Charisma score," Julian explained. "And he tends to get a little gassy when he comes out of a Barbarian Rage." For all his efforts to appear unaffected, Julian could feel his own eyes watering. This was a particularly ripe one.
Fabulazzo coughed for a moment, then slapped Cooper on the back. "I, for one, am impressed! But just so you're aware, we do have a room for this in the tower. My servants have left for the night, and I would appreciate not having to clean up too much in the morning."
Cooper nodded. "I understand."
"What's that wonderful smell?" asked Tim. His one hand was still down the front of his pants, and Dave was guiding him by the other arm.
"Jesus, Cooper," said Dave. "Are you trying to win a contest?"
"Fuck you, Dave. I'm..." Cooper's eyes focused beyond the others. "... humbled."
Julian turned around to find one of the hounds in the process of taking a shit. Cooper was right. It was certainly something to behold.
The turd flowed out of the creature's ass like magma seeping through a crack in the earth's surface. It was slow, steady, and on fire. It formed a neat pile, like a flaming Hershey's Kiss the size of one of Cooper's fists. The rain sizzled on the pile after the dog moved, putting out the flames and changing the color of the pile from glowing red to black almost instantaneously. Julian wondered if it had a crispy outer shell.
Count Fabulazzo cleared his throat, and everyone seemed to awaken simultaneously to the fact that they were all staring at dog shit.
"Perhaps you'd like to come inside? I have roasted elk and Barrier Island rum."
Julian smiled gratefully. "That sounds wonderful. We'd love to come in."
"You forget your place, elf," said Butkus. "You are hired hands. How about you finish the job you're being paid to do?"
Cooper grabbed his crotch. "How about you eat a dick?"
"These boxes aren't going anywhere," said Count Fabulazzo. "Come inside and rest for a bit. The wagon can be unloaded any time."
Butkus was right that they had been hired to do a job. If there was any drinking to be done tonight, Julian certainly didn't want to rely on his friends to get any work done once the Barrier Island rum started flowing.
"Between the four of us," said Julian, "it shouldn't take us long to move these boxes."
Count Fabulazzo looked disdainfully at Butkus, then smiled at Julian. "Just put them there on the shelves wherever there's space. When you're finished, change out of those wet clothes and put on one of these cloaks." He indicated several stacks of folded purple laundry on the shelves. "You should all be able to find one that fits."
"It's very courteous to have those ready for your guests," said Julian.
"To tell you the truth, I don't receive that many visitors." Count Fabulazzo gestured to the cloaks again. "Aside from the Trog'bahar cultists, of course."
Dave looked confused. "The cultists hike all the way up this mountain to bring you clothes?"
"Not exactly. They come here to convert me to their religion. They're the whole reason I purchased the hell hounds in the first place."
"Oh," said Dave.
"The hounds get fed, and I get free cloaks. Everybody wins." He clapped his hands together. "That reminds me, I must see the hounds to their kennel. Butkus, would you care to join me?"
Butkus jumped at the sound of his own name, then seemed to have to piece together everything the count had said after it. "No, thank you. So kind of you to offer, but I think I'll stay here and help the lads unload the wagon."
To Julian's surprise, Butkus actually did help unload the boxes. It helped him avoid eye contact with everyone after his latest display of cowardice. Julian was grateful for the help, seeing as they were effectively a man short, what with Tim lying in the corner with his hand down his pants again.
"Samantha," Tim groaned in a state of semi-consciousness. "Angela!"
Cooper stopped mid-stride on his way from the wagon to the shelves. "Is he whacking it to Who's the Boss??"
"Moooooooooona!" Tim moaned.
Julian, Cooper, and Dave cringed at the grisly confirmation of Cooper's theory. Butkus shook his head and continued working.
The wagon was nearly empty by the time Count Fabulazzo returned from herding his hounds to their kennels.
When the last box was placed on the shelf, everyone sorted through the folded rose petal scented cloaks to find ones large or small enough to fit their various body styles.
Julian found a long and slender cloak. Close inspection revealed irregular seams and faint brown stains, suggesting it had been ripped to shreds, bled through profusely, then mended and washed. On the bright side, it was warm, dry, and comfortable.
After everyone else had changed, they went to work on Tim. When Cooper started wrestling Tim's hand out of his pants, Julian knew that it was up to either him or Dave to pull Tim's pants off.
He walked briskly back to the shelves announcing, "I'll find a cloak to fit him."
It wasn't until he returned that Dave, pulling off Tim's pants while looking away from his junk, shot Julian a scornful glare, having finally discovered his motives.
Cooper removed Tim's vest and shirt, leaving Tim's hands free to go straight back to his crotch.
"Sophia," Tim groaned as Julian pulled the cloak down over his head.
Julian thought back on what old TV show Tim might have switched over to. "Is he having a go at The Golden Girls now?"
"There was a Sophia he had a thing for in high school," said Dave.
"I never understood what he saw in her," said Cooper. "I think I might have preferred the Golden Girl."
Julian pulled the cloak down over Tim's shoulders. "Maybe let's not bother putting his arms through the sleeves, lest he be a danger to himself and others.
Trog'bahar's cultists must have been primarily human. Julian's cloak fit well enough, but was a bit loose. Cooper and Dave's cloaks stretched tight around their considerably broader chests, making them look like discount street hookers. Tim, with the bottom of his cloak going far lower than his feet, and his hands doing whatever they were doing to his junk, looked like a purple worm with an erratic heartbeat.
Count Fabulazzo led them into the interior of the tower. Rather than go back out into the rain, they entered through what Julian thought of as the garage, where they'd unloaded the wagon. In the kitchen, a large elk carcass butterflied on a solid oak table, among a set of bloodied butcher's tools. Most of the internal organs were missing, as were the ribs and most of the muscles on its left side.
"This fine fellow is what we'll be eating tonight," said Count Fabulazzo. "I brought him down myself a week ago."
Julian found it strange that the carcass wasn't crawling with maggots. If it was producing any foul odor, it didn't compete with Cooper.
"What do you do to preserve the meat?" asked Dave, apparently having the same concerns as Julian.
Count Fabulazzo shrugged. "I've never pressed my cook on the issue, but I expect he uses the same methods that anyone does."
"Salt? Refrigeration?"
The count frowned quizzically at Dave. "Necromancy."
Julian and Dave glanced at Butkus, who nodded with halfhearted interest. He'd looked appropriately horrified at the announcement of where their cloaks had come from, so Julian felt a little better about the explanation of how the meat was preserved.
Count Fabulazzo, carrying the basket with all of their wet clothes, continued through the door leading out of the kitchen. "I apologize for such a modest dinner. I sent all the servants home to get ahead of the storm, and I wasn't sure whether you'd make it here or not."
The room they were in now was nearly completely circular, taking up all of the tower's ground floor which wasn't taken up by the kitchen and garage. An impressively large hearth housed a roaring fire directly opposite the kitchen door.
Count Fabulazzo pulled down a large U-shaped wrought iron bar until it came to rest perpendicular to the wall. Julian guessed its purpose was to support a curtain which would contain the fire's heat to an area big enough to provide warmth for two or three people if one didn't want to burn enough fuel to heat the entire tower. But the count had a different use in mind for it now. He began hanging up their wet foul-smelling clothes, and Julian rushed to help him, taking in the rest of the room as he did so.
To the left of the hearth, shelves lined the curved wall. There were a number of books, scrolls, bottles, and various other odds and ends scattered about, but there was plenty of shelf space left. Julian hypothesized that the count might be a mid-level spellcaster working his way up.
At the base of the shelves was a large desk which appeared to have been carved out of a single block of black granite. A luxurious egg-shaped chair, carved out of the same black granite, was upholstered on the hollowed inside with puffy black leather. It looked like a remarkably heavy piece of furniture, which accentuated the impressiveness of the fact that it was floating two inches off the floor.
Cooper seemed less impressed with the chair than Julian, taking little more interest in it than as a place to dump Tim. The chair turned easily and silently as he pivoted it to face the desk, presumably so no one had to watch Tim continue to fondle himself and drool.
In the center of the room stood a table that didn't seem to match with the rest of the furniture, like it was put there specifically for its current purpose, to hold the modest dinner the count had laid out for his guests who may or may not be showing up. Sliced elk meat, which Julian was thankful to see was cooked, three logs of cheese, each a slightly different shade of yellow, and loaves of brown-crusted bread, each about as big as Julian's head.
"Please help yourselves," said Count Fabulazzo when he and Julian had finished hanging up the wet clothes.
Cooper didn't need to be told twice. Ignoring the two-pronged silver forks and dishes which had been laid out, he ripped a loaf of bread apart, grabbed a handful of elk, and cut slices of cheese off two of the cheese logs.
Count Fabulazzo watched in fascination as Cooper placed the top half of the bread atop the pile of meat and cheese, completing his sandwich.
"How delightfully barbaric!" squealed the count, clapping his hands giddily. He picked up a loaf of bread and made growling noises as he ripped it in half. Julian, Dave, and Butkus followed suit, but only Butkus seemed to take anywhere near the same level of childlike delight in it that Count Fabulazzo did.
Butkus and the count tore into their sandwiches like rabid wolves, really hamming up the barbaric savagery inherent, to them at least, in eating layered food.
When the first round of sandwiches were done, Count Fabulazzo went into the kitchen and returned with a tray full of glasses and a large glass decanter filled with caramel-brown liquid.
The Barrier Island rum was rich with spices, almost like a liquid pumpkin pie that got you drunk. It was smooth going down, and did more to warm Julian's insides than the roaring fire in the hearth.
While they drank, Count Fabulazzo hounded Cooper with questions about his homeland. Instead of making something up, Cooper responded with stories about people he knew in Mississippi. It was a surprisingly plausible description of a barbarian upbringing.
When the bottle had no more rum to give, Butkus declared it was time to retire for the night. The rain had stopped, and traveling downhill would almost certainly be easier than going up, but it would be best to waste as little daylight as possible.
Count Fabulazzo led them up four flights of stairs running along the interior curved wall of the tower to the guest bedrooms, of which there were two. Upon entering one of the rooms, Julian's eyes were immediately drawn to the curtains and bedsheets, which were obviously made from repurposed robes of former devotees of Trog'bahar.
Butkus decreed that one bedroom was for him alone, and the other was for "the help." It was a needlessly dickish gesture, as each room had a bed large enough to accommodate three grown men comfortably.
But nobody complained about not getting to share a bed with Butkus. Cooper was more comfortable sleeping on the floor anyway. Julian, being an elf, required no sleep. Dave and Tim were short enough to sleep sideways on the bed and there was enough space between them that they might as well have been in different time zones.
Cooper and Dave fell asleep pretty quickly, and Tim had passed out during dinner. Julian hadn't seen Ravenus since they unloaded the wagon, but a few otherwise inexplicable tingly sensations in his genital area told him that Ravenus had met a number of nice female birds in the area. Good for him. Wherever he was right now, their Empathic Link reassured Julian that he was safe and content.
Julian sat on the floor, alone with his thoughts, until his mind drifted off to the sound of Cooper's rhythmic snoring. Four hours later, he came out of the trance, which passed for sleep among elves, to the sensation of pins and needles in his ass.
Cooper had gassed up the room pretty bad by that point, so Julian decided to go for a walk and see what there was to see during the wee hours of the morning. Count Fabulazzo had granted them permission to explore the tower as much as they liked, as long as they didn't try to force open any doors which were locked.
Julian had no interest in snooping around some guy's house, but he was curious as to what the view was like from the top of the tower. So he climbed five more flights of stairs until the stairwell ended in a room about the size of a small closet with a wooden door at the far end.
The door opened with a gentle push, and Julian was taken aback by the magnificence of the star-filled sky. On top of a tower on top of a mountain, the view was so much more dazzling from here than it was from ground level.
Beholding the vast wonder of the infinite beyond made Julian feel tiny and insignificant. It made him feel at peace to know that whatever mistakes he made in life, the universe would keep on existing. It made his testicles ache.
Julian was considering the universe's effect on his testicles when a voice startled him from behind.
"Hello, sir." The joviality in Ravenus's voice seemed a little forced.
Julian turned around and looked down at his familiar. "There you are. I've been wondering where you'd gone." He looked back up at the sky. "Have you taken in this view? It's positively stunning."
"It was lovely, sir."
"Is there something on your mind, Ravenus? You seem... I don't know. Preoccupied?"
"I was actually enjoying the company of a lady, if you take my meaning, sir." Ravenus looked back and Julian followed his gaze. A brown hawk was hiding shyly in the shadow of the crenelated wall. She raised a wing when Julian spotted her.
"'Sup?" was all Julian could think to say in response.
"She became … startled when the door opened, sir."
"Oh, I'm sorry." Julian thought for a moment, then Ravenus's meaning clicked in his mind. "Ooooh... That explains my balls."
Ravenus cocked his head sideways, then shook off the curiosity. "Of course it does, sir. If we might discuss that at a later –"
"I'm going, I'm going." Julian waved to Ravenus and his lady friend before entering the stairwell and closing the door behind him.
Two hundred and forty-seven steps later, Julian was at the bottom of the tower. He let himself out through the side door where the wagon was parked. The night sky was still dazzling, but not as vast and infinite with so much of it blotted out by the tower and surrounding trees.
He considered going for a walk further up the road to see if he could find a nice clearing from which he could take in more of the sky while he prepared his spells for the coming day, but he stopped at the gate. If he tried to leave, the sound of the gate might set off the dogs and wake everyone up. Besides, the woods were bound to be crawling with monsters which might shy away from a party of five, but would be quick to attack a lone elf.
Looking through the gate, Julian was pleasantly surprised that the road seemed to have mostly dried up. The rainwater had apparently hauled ass down the mountain after the storm cleared. If the weather stayed like it currently was, they should have an easy ride home in the morning.
Julian sighed. Morning was still hours away. With nothing to read, not a lot of area to explore, and not even Ravenus around to keep him company, he decided to use his time as productively as he could. He'd transcribe some of his unused spells for the day onto scrolls, either to be used later or to be sold for a few silver pieces to spellcasters even crappier than he was.
The the wagon had some recently cleared shelf space he could use as a desk. He made his way back to the tower's "garage" and found his bag, along with his friends' bags, in the back of the wagon. He pulled out his scroll tube and flattened a blank sheet of paper on one of the shelves. The shelf, unfortunately, was too high for him to sit, but too low for him to stand while scribing. Even with his elven Low Light Vision, the near complete darkness strained his eyes as he penned the magical symbols floating around in his mind onto the page.
It was uncomfortable and tedious work, and for the lackluster benefit of having one more shitty Magic Missile spell at his disposal, but at least it killed the time. He was about three quarters of the way through it when he heard the tower door open.
Butkus looked as surprised to see Julian as Julian felt at seeing him.
"Elf," said Butkus. "What are you doing here?"
Julian shrugged. "Killing time. Elves don't sleep."
"Listen, I apologize if our exchange became a tad heated yesterday. It was just the road weariness talking, you know?" Butkus offered what Julian assumed was supposed to be a friendly smile. A glint of gold shone from one of his teeth not visible behind his default scowl.
"Think nothing of it," said Julian. "I understand. We both said things that weren't very nice. Water under the bridge."
Butkus nodded. "A fine saying. Does that come from your people?"
"You could say that."
"The weather seems to have cleared, but I think it best not to tempt the fates. We should set off back to Cardinia as soon as possible."
Julian rolled up his half-completed scroll and shoved it back into the tube. "You'll find no argument here."
"Then would you mind conjuring up a couple of those horses for me? I'll get them hitched up and you can go up and wake your friends."
"Sounds good," said Julian. He hopped out of the back of the wagon and walked to the front. "Horse!"
A sturdy brown horse appeared between Julian and Butkus.
"Horse!" he repeated, and a white horse appeared.
Julian stood in front of the two horses and placed a palm on each of their cheeks. "Butkus is going to hitch you to the wagon. You two behave yourselves and do as he asks, okay?"
When he caught Butkus staring at him, he felt the compulsion to explain. "They're magical horses. They're sometimes uncooperative with people other than the one who summons them if they aren't explicitly instructed not to –"
A shrill scream tore through the otherwise silent night air. It came from somewhere in the middle of the tower.
"Shit," said Julian. "I'd better go see what happened."
Butkus nodded vigorously. "You do that, elf." He hurriedly started hitching the horses to his wagon.
Julian swung open the tower door, sprinted through the kitchen, and raced up the stairs. When he got to the third floor, he found Tim and Count Fabulazzo standing outside a door that Julian remembered having been closed before.
Tim was confused and angry, hopping around like a caterpillar who'd been interrupted mid-metamorphasis. Count Fabulazzo, who had obviously been the one doing all the screaming, was staring into the room stricken with horror.
"What's going on?" asked Julian.
"That's a good fucking question," said Tim. "Why are we all dressed in fucking Snuggies, and why are my hands glued to my balls?"
Julian joined the count at the door and discovered Cooper sitting atop a large red porcelain jar. He was surrounded by burning candles and several paintings of the same elderly woman. In every picture she was portrayed wearing dresses that would make Puritans look like whores. The creases on her face were well-defined from a lifetime of scowling. Her eyes, however, were not entirely unlike the count's.
"Would you guys mind giving me a little privacy," asked Cooper. "I'm almost done in here."
"GET OUT OF THIS ROOM AT ONCE!" demanded Count Fabulazzo.
Cooper let out one last wet ass-spray before standing up. Count Fabulazzo gasped as he hurried into the room and looked into the jar Cooper had just risen from.
"Mother!" he said, choking back tears.
Cooper peered into the jar alongside him. "Is that some kind of Horshack test interpretation?"
"You!" Count Fabulazzo's eyes burned with the reflection of the two fireballs which had just appeared in his hands. "I take you into my home. I clothe and feed you. I share with you my finest Barrier Island rum and give you shelter for the night. And this is how you repay my generosity? You defecate in my mother's urn?"
Julian gasped.
"Do you have anymore of that rum left?" asked Tim.
Cooper backed away from the count. "Sorry, dude. I thought it was a toilet."
The count's voice shook as he spoke. "Why would I surround a toilet with portraits of my late mother?"
"How the fuck was I supposed to know it was your mother?" asked Cooper. "I thought those were just there for something to whack off to while you're on the shitter."
"Cooper!" cried Julian. "What the hell are you talking about? Who whacks off on the shitter?"
"I just did."
Julian pulled on his ears. "To a painting of an old woman?"
"Whoa," said Cooper. "Take it down a notch. That's this dude's mother you're talking about."
The flames in Count Fabulazzo's hands grew more intense as he glared at Cooper. "It's common courtesy to not go snooping around in locked rooms when you're a guest in someone's home. But just to make the matter crystal clear, I gave you explicit instructions not to do that. Your disobedience shall cost you your life."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" asked Cooper. "The door wasn't even locked."
"Of course it was! It is always locked. No one but me is allowed into this room EVER!"
Tim shuffled over and squinted into the door's keyhole. "This lock has been picked."
"There, you see!"
"Cooper can't pick a lock," said Julian. "He doesn't have the Dexterity or the skill ranks."
"That's right," said Cooper. "I can barely wipe my own ass." Evidence of Cooper's claim dripped on the floor between his feet.
Julian could tell that the count was anything but a hothead. Most people, having the means, would have blasted Cooper to hell long before now in similar circumstances. On the other hand, Julian considered that he was wearing evidence that the count was well capable of murder. He might listen to reason if Julian was able to articulate his thoughts quickly enough.
"When Cooper wants to get through a locked door, he uses..." Julian was about to go on about Cooper's high Strength score, but then he remembered Count Fabulazzo's fixation with Cooper's barbarian upbringing. "He uses the methods passed down by his barbarian ancestors. Zuglar the Mighty would never have reigned over the Tribes of... um..."
"Picayune," suggested Cooper.
"Picayune," Julian repeated, "if his warriors ever witnessed him trying to pick a lock. Likewise, if Cooper wanted to get through a locked door, it would be torn off the hinges and smashed to splinters."
Julian took a deep breath, satisfied with his massive tale of bullshit.
Count Fabulazzo nodded slowly as the fireballs in his hands dimmed, but didn't go out completely. "If not Cooper, then which one of you picked the lock?" He narrowed his eyes at Tim.
"Don't look at me," said Tim. "My hands are still stuck to my nuts."
"And if not for the sole purpose of soiling my dear mother's ashes," the count continued as he peered into the room, "then for what pur–" His eyes grew wide with horror. "Mother!"
Julian and Tim exchanged glances. Tim shrugged.
Count Fabulazzo stood in front of the urn and looked up at a glass display case. "She's gone!"
Tim looked at Julian and nodded toward the count. Julian took it to mean that he should go in there and say something encouraging.
Julian did his best. "Her spirit will always live on in your heart and in your memory."
"No!" cried the count. "Her spirit lives on inside the amulet. I imprisoned her there before I strangled the life out of her body."
"Oh," said Julian and Tim simultaneously.
Cooper nodded. "That was thoughtful."
"Hey guys," said Dave as he descended the stairs from the fourth floor. "Where is –"
"What have you done with my mother?" cried the count. The flames in his hands flickered and grew.
Dave stopped mid-step. "Nothing! I was just upstairs taking a dump." After a moment of thought, he added, "alone."
"Settle an argument, would you?" Cooper asked Dave. "And be honest. Did you whack it on the shitter?"
Dave grimaced at Cooper for a second before continuing his thought from earlier. "Where is Butkus going? Weren't we supposed to get a ride back with him?"
"What are you talking about?" Julian's heart sank as he began to piece together the obvious answer to the question.
"Butkus!" said the count. "Of course! I knew he couldn't be trusted." He extinguished the flames in his hands and ran past Dave up the stairs.
"Where the fuck is he going?" asked Cooper.
Tim's eyes lit up. "Maybe he's going to Fireball Butkus from the top of the tower!"
"That would be badass," said Cooper.
Tim hopped up and down, the current extent of his mobility options. "Pick me up and follow him!"
Cooper scooped up Tim and started running up the stairs.
Count Fabulazzo appeared again, running in the opposite direction and carrying a large bundle of purple cloth. He flicked his wrist, sending Cooper and Tim flying off the staircase and landing on Dave. Without so much as a pause or an 'excuse me', he continued down the stairs with a focus and determination Julian had never witnessed anyone have toward doing laundry. Maybe it was a coping mechanism, or something like Lady Macbeth washing her hands.
"Hey guys," said Julian. "I think we should get out of here while the count is distracted. I think he's cracking up, and I don't think we'll want to be around when he finally goes whole hog on losing his shit." He smiled. "Also, I'm looking forward to seeing Butkus's face when we catch up to him."
Dave frowned. "He's long gone. I'm sorry guys, but I was on the can for a good fifteen minutes after I saw Butkus go. I think it's got something to do with that necromantically preserved elk meat. It was really running through me."
Cooper rubbed his belly. "I know, right?"
Julian had stopped for a squat or two while walking around outside as well, but he felt no need to share this information. Instead, he started walking down the stairs. "As much as I'd love to stand here and listen to you two talk about your bowel movements, we should probably go get dressed, track down that weasel, and get paid."
Cooper picked up Tim and followed.
"Screw our clothes," said Dave, taking the rear. "If you think there's a chance we can catch up to Butkus, shouldn't we waste as little time as possible?"
"We've got all the time in the world. Those horses pulling Butkus's wagon were summoned by me."
"I know your magical horses have a tendency to die horrible untimely deaths," said Tim. "But it's kind of creepy that you're banking on it now."
Julian stepped behind his serape, warm and dry hanging on the bar around the hearth, and pulled off his purple robe. "I'm not banking on the horses dying. I'm banking on their spell duration timing out."
"Oh yeah. They live that long so infrequently that I forgot it was a thing."
Cooper held Tim's robe by the hood and shook it until Tim fell out of the bottom. Mercifully, his hands were still stuck to his junk.
Julian turned around and started pulling on his dry clothes. "He won't have more than two hours before those horses disappear, leaving him stranded in his wagon. Considering that he tried to rip us off, I won't feel bad extorting three times our agreed-upon payment out of him."
Once they were all finished getting dressed, Julian led the way through the front door of the tower, which was open a crack. He looked left and right, but saw no sign of Count Fabulazzo.
"Do you think it's rude to just leave without saying goodbye?" Julian wondered aloud.
"No ruder than shitting in his mother's urn," said Tim. "This guy's unstable. Every interaction we have with him is just one more chance for us to accidentally piss him off. Let's just leave him to his laundry and get the fuck out of here."
Tim ran stealthily toward the gate, looked around, then waved the rest of them over.
Julian wasn't sure why they were sneaking around. He supposed it was natural for Tim, being a rogue, but he found himself running as quietly as he could, keeping his weight on the balls of his feet.
Dave lagged behind, as usual, his movement barely qualifying as running. And Cooper ran about as stealthily as a charging rhino.
"No, Cooper! Wait!" cried Tim as Cooper came barreling toward the gate. Miraculously, Cooper seemed to hear him and slowed down.
Tim sighed with relief. "We need to wait for Dave before we open the –"
The iron gate's hinges screamed as Cooper leaned against it to catch his breath.
"Fuck," said Tim.
Tim's concerns were justified almost immediately as the three hell hounds barked like a stadium full of crazed wolves. In the early morning darkness, Julian could see the glow of their fiery breath coming from just around the other side of the tower.
"Hurry up, Dave!" cried Julian.
Dave pumped his stubby dwarf legs, moving with all the swiftness of an elderly power walker at the mall, while Tim and Cooper stood poised to slam the gate shut as soon as he made it through.
The dogs were fast as they came around the tower, but Dave was more than halfway there. It was going to be close.
Julian gripped two bars and pressed his face between them. "He's going to make it."
"I don't think he is, sir," said Ravenus, who had just flapped down to perch atop the fence.
"I've got to agree with Ravenus on this one," said Tim. "Dave's fucked."
As the painful-to-watch race continued, it became clear that Ravenus and Tim's objective assessments were going to prevail over Julian's wishful thinking.
"Shit," said Tim. "Where the hell are our weapons?"
Julian had seen them less than an hour ago. "In the wagon."
Cooper gripped the gate's bars with both hands. "I'm really angry!" With the added Strength bonus from his Barbarian Rage, he ripped the gate off its hinges, held it over his head, and flipped it around so that the pointy tips at the top of the bars were aimed down at the approaching hounds.
Julian supposed he'd better do something as well. He was thinking about whether a Magic Missile or a Mount spell would be more conducive to keeping him and his friends alive when something strange happened.
The hell hounds caught up to Dave, but then ran past him. Tim and Cooper watched confusedly as the manically barking hounds ran through the opening in the fence and carried on down the road.
Having run forty yards, Dave was breathing like he'd just been held underwater for two minutes.
"Stop!" cried Count Fabulazzo from the other side of the tower where the dogs had just come from. "Come back here! Yippy! Pippy! Skip–" He stopped when he saw them, his eyes burning with angry frustration. "What have you done to my gate?"
Cooper's Barbarian Rage flowed out through his anus in a long wet fart as his muscles deflated back down to their normal size. He set the gate down. "That was a misunderstanding."
The count stomped toward them with his fists full of fire once again. "Have you any idea what you've done?"
Behind him, an invisible floating disc carried a pile of chains and a bundle of purple cloth.
"I'm very sorry," said Julian. "We didn't want to bother you while you were doing laundry, so we thought we'd let ourselves –"
"Laundry? Why would I be doing laundry when my mother's spirit has just been stolen?"
Julian was in an awkward spot. His choices boiled down to admitting that his reasoning involved Count Fabulazzo being batshit insane or making himself seem catastrophically stupid. He decided to go with the latter.
"I saw the cloth, and just assumed..."
"These are Butkus's bed sheets. I took them so that the hounds could get a good sniff and track down that dirty thieving scoundrel!"
"Oh," said Julian. "Well done then. It looks like they're hot on his trail."
"And precious little good that does me!" Count Fabulazzo grabbed a fistful of chain from the invisible disc. "I hadn't attached their leashes yet."
"Holy shit!" said Tim. "Were you going to ride the disc while the dogs pulled you?"
Count Fabulazzo scowled down at Tim. "That was the plan."
"That would have been epic."
"Now my mother is gone. My sweet pups are gone. I fear I may never get that smell out of my tower. May the gods damn the day I invited you cretins into my home."
Julian tried to think of a use for his Diplomacy skill that would allow them to leave as quickly as possible.
"We don't want to cause you any more trouble," said Dave. "So I guess we'll be going now." He hadn't allotted any skill points to Diplomacy, and it showed.
The flames surrounding Count Fabulazzo's fists intensified. "The only place you're going is to the kennels. Once I acquire some new hell hounds, I'll use you to train them."
Cooper frowned. "None of us have any ranks in Animal Handling."
Dave frowned harder. "I don't think that's what he has in mind."
"I have an alternative suggestion," said Julian.
Count Fabulazzo raised his eyebrows, indicating that he was willing to hear it.
"What if we made this right? What if we agreed to get your amulet back for you?" Cooper, Dave, and Tim nodded enthusiastically at the suggestion.
"And what assurances do I have that you won't simply flee once I let you go?"
Julian thought for a moment. "Is there some magical way you could compel us? I seem to remember reading about a higher level spell that –"
"A Geas!" cried Count Fabulazzo.
"I beg your pardon?" said Cooper.
"Is that how it's really pronounced?" asked Dave.
"Shit," muttered Tim, no doubt hoping Julian was going to convince the count to trust them, and then immediately betray his trust.
Count Fabulazzo reached into one of the pockets lining the inside of his robe and said, "Geas." He pulled out a rolled up piece of paper much bigger than what the pocket should have allowed for. "It's been so long since I've placed a Geas on someone."
"That's some very peculiar phrasing." Cooper belched out some anxiety. "One of those cultists might have been up for it if you'd given them a chance."
The count opened the scroll and read an incantation that was above Julian's arcane understanding. After he was done, he rolled the paper back up and addressed Julian and his friends. "You are hereby compelled to return the amulet containing my mother's spirit to me."
"Okay," said Julian. "I guess we'll get started on –"
"In addition," said the count. "You will return my three hell hounds."
"Shit," Tim expressed Julian's thoughts aloud.
"Upon completing this quest, you will be free."
Cooper scratched his ass nervously. "So, is that in addition to you placing your gay ass upon us? Or do we get to choose?"
Count Fabulazzo considered Cooper's question, but apparently considered it too stupid to address. "Should you voluntarily abandon the quest given to you, your bodies and minds will deteriorate every day until there's nothing left of you but quivering imbecilic mounds of flesh."
The count's words were harsh, but Julian appreciated that his description of what they would become was lower than his current assessment of what they were.
Parting ways with someone who was on the fence about straight up murdering them all was never easy. There were no right words. Simply turning around and walking away, while awkward, was usually the best course of action.
Julian led his friends through the gate and onto the road, grateful to not be incinerated. When they had walked for about twenty minutes, Julian sent Ravenus ahead to scout for Butkus's wagon and the hell hounds, but instructed him not to interfere.
"Should we ride?" asked Dave. Julian suspected his reason for asking had more to do with laziness than enthusiasm for the quest.
"Not unless you know how we're going to capture three hell hounds once we get there. We can rush things along once we have a plan."
"I've been thinking about that. He didn't say we had to bring the dogs back alive. How does this sound? Tim sets a snare. Julian summons a horse to use as bait. When one of them gets pulled up into the air, we'll beat it to death before it can breathe fire on the rope. Rinse and repeat."
Julian glared at Dave. "Every part of that plan sounds horrible. Those are somebody's pets."
"Those are fire breathing monsters," said Dave. "They've been raised from pups for the sole purpose of murdering innocent people who annoy that psychopath."
"And that psychopath who murders people who annoy him, that's the guy you want to get into a game of semantics with?" Julian lowered his voice and continued with his best Dave impression. "Sorry we shat in your mom's urn, sir. Here, we also killed your dogs."
"None of this matters," said Tim. "I can't set up a snare without a rope, and all of our shit is in the wagon."
They spent close to an hour arguing over how best to subdue the hell hounds without actually killing them, but the fire breathing part nixed most of their proposed plans.
"I've spotted the wagon, sir," said Ravenus as he landed on the branch of a nearby tree. "It took a bit of effort as it seems to have rolled off the road, and was difficult to spot from the air."
Julian nodded impatiently. "Where is it?"
"Just around that bend, sir."
Tim took the lead, but the benefit of his Stealth was dampened by his insistence that Cooper stay at least forty feet behind him in case any hell hounds jumped out of the woods.
The wagon was just as Ravenus had reported. The horses were gone, and so was Butkus.
"Our shit's still here," said Tim from the back of the wagon. He rummaged through their belongings and grabbed a handful of crossbow bolts. "Except my crossbow is missing."
"Here it is under the wagon," said Julian. He picked up the crossbow and handed it to Tim, who looked very relieved to have it.
Dave looked nervously around at their surroundings. "Are there any amulets in there?"
Tim gave the wagon a brief scan as he loaded a bolt into his crossbow. "None that I can see."
Julian scanned the ground for hoof prints and thought aloud. "So Butkus hears the hounds approaching, unhitches the horses, and rides off into the woods."
"Why would he unhitch both of the horses?" asked Dave.
Julian glared at him. As long as it made no difference to their situation, Julian wanted to think of a scenario in which the horses might have lived the full duration of the spell. "To create a diversion. Hopefully get one or two of the hell hounds off his ass. Why don't you see if you can find some kind of clue as to which way Butkus went?"
"There's also the possibility that both horses got mauled to death by hell hounds," said Cooper, squatting behind some undergrowth on the other side of the road.
"Of course that's a possibility," said Julian. "But not necessarily a conclusion we have to jump to without any evidence."
"Does a bunch of blood splattered all over the place count as evidence?"
Julian rushed to the road. "Yes!" He stopped just short of peering into the bushes where Cooper was taking a dump.
"Dude, could you give me a second?"
"Why are you shitting in the evidence?" asked Julian.
"Because of that fucking elk meat."
"Guys!" cried Tim from inside the wagon. "I think I found some more evidence."
Glowing red eyes peered out from the trees on the other side of the road, accompanied by a low menacing growl. As the single hell hound limped into view, snarling at Tim, Julian spotted a bolt sticking out from the base of its neck.
"Tim," Julian whispered as calmly as he could. "Put the crossbow down."
"No fucking way," Tim whispered back considerably less calmly. "Count Fabulazzo can go fuck himself." He raised his voice, addressing the dog. "You stay back!"
The hell hound's growls turned into barks as tiny flames spurted out from its nostrils.
Recognizing the futility of trying to get either one of them to back down, Julian saw no other option than to blow one of his spells.
"Rock-a-bye, and good night..." That was all it took for such a ferocious beast to curl up on the ground in a peaceful slumber. Poor little pooch must have been exhausted.
Tim sighed. "Nice job." He took a coil of rope out of his pack, hopped down from the back of the wagon, and started binding the hound's feet together.
"Dave," said Julian. "You should get over here and heal it."
"Why?" asked Dave. "It's alive enough. Why would I want to waste a Heal spell on a hell hound when there are two more out there who could still burn and eat us? Count Fabulazzo can't hold us accountable for Butkus shooting his dog."
Julian folded his arms and raised his eyebrows at Dave. "Are you sure about that?"
Dave frowned. "Maybe you're right." He looked at Tim. "You sure those knots are going to hold him?"
Tim nodded.
Dave placed one hand on the hound's shoulder and gripped the bolt with the other. "One, two..." He yanked the bolt out.
The hell hound yelped and bit Dave hard on his leopard fur covered forearm. It's neck was more flexible than any of them had anticipated.
"FUCK!" cried Dave. "It burns!"
Tim scrambled backward and reached for his crossbow in the wagon. Cooper, having finished his dump, took Tim's place near the furious hell hound and punched it in the head, eliciting a sharper cry from Dave, who still had the dog's teeth in his arm, but knocking the beast out cold.
The pattern of tooth marks on Dave's arm surrounded a blackened and blistered patch of skin and scorched leopard fur.
"Son of a bitch," said Dave through clenched teeth. He touched a fingertip to his arm just below the wound. "I heal me." He let out a long relieved groan as the burn faded, the punctures closed up, and the fur grew back.
"Feel better?" asked Julian.
Dave frowned. "Yeah, but I was hoping that might have gotten rid of the fur."
"Good. Now the dog."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" cried Dave. "Did you not just see what that thing did to me?"
"That doesn't change our situation. We don't want to piss off Count Fabulazzo any more than we already have."
Dave's face shook with anger and frustration. "Fine." He crawled as far back away from the hound as he could and still be within stretching distance from its head. Barely touching the tip of one of the dog's ears, he said his incantation. "I heal thee."
The hound groaned happily. It opened its eyes and licked Dave's hand.
Dave jerked his hand back. "Shit! That still burns."
As the hole in the dog's shoulder closed over with fresh skin, a long and gentle fart flowed out from its ass. Gentle, that is, except for the fact that it was on fire. Julian smiled at Dave. "Speaking of shit that still burns."
"Whoa," said Cooper. "I could seriously watch that all day."
As if to reward them for healing its wound, the dog followed through with a nice long magma turd. Julian and his friends stared in awe.
Because the hound's legs were tied and it couldn't stand up, the turd lacked the conical swirl of the first one they'd witnessed, but Julian noticed another, arguably less superficial difference as well. This dog turd had something in it. A glint of gold, it looked like, but too small to be a coin.
"As much as I hate to admit it," said Tim. "I could watch this all day as well. But if we don't want to start withering away, we should try to find Butkus before his trail gets too cold."
Julian swallowed. "I think I just found him." Just as he recognized the shape of a tooth, it began to melt into an amorphous golden blob, seeping between the cracks of the dog turd's blackening outer shell. He had little hope left that his horses had reached the end of their spell durations.
"I've got some bad news and some worse news," said Julian.
"What's the worse news?" asked Tim.
"That way doesn't work. If I tell you the worse news first, it kind of spills the beans on the bad news."
"I'm way too sober for this shit. Just say what you've got to say."
"Butkus is dead."
Tim frowned thoughtfully. "I'm feeling pretty indifferent to that news. Hit us with the worse."
"I think one of the hell hounds may have eaten the amulet."
"Are you kidding?" said Tim. "That's fantastic news!"
"How do you figure?"
"The amulet has been destroyed. The hounds fucked Fabulazzo's Geas!"
Cooper paused in the scratching of his balls. "When did that happen? Why didn't you wake me up?"
"We still have to get the hounds back to him." said Dave.
"You think he's up for Round 2 this soon?" Cooper rubbed his ass cheeks with both hands. "I don't know if I'd be able to even sit down for at least a week."
The time it would have taken to explain to Cooper what Geas meant, and more importantly what it didn't mean, was time better spent getting rid of the Geas.
Julian asked the question he already knew the obviously horrible answer to. "How should we go about rounding up the other two – Wait a second..." He sniffed the air. "Do you guys smell something?"
Tim and Dave sniffed. "Nothing unusual."
Cooper leaned over and put his hands on his knees. "You're about to. I'm never going to look at another goddamn elk again."
"That's not what I'm talking about," said Julian. "I think I smell smoke." He ran a few steps into the woods, where the rainwater flowing down the mountain had swept fallen leaves into wavy patterns on the ground, leaving them piled high against some of the larger tree trunks. Out of one such pile of leaves, Julian spotted a small ribbon of white smoke rising.
"Dude, wait up!" called Cooper as he stomped through the woods behind Julian.
The leaf pile was damp, but glowing orange flickers within it suggested that a big blaze wasn't far off.
"Those dogs are going to set this whole forest on fire if we don't catch them soon," said Julian as he scattered the leaves with his quarterstaff. Cooper stomped out the scattered clusters of burning leaves.
At the bottom of the pile, Julian found exactly what he'd been expecting to find, but not all that he was hoping for. The smoldering dog turd was studded with steel buttons from Butkus's jacket, but there was no sign of the amulet. Julian didn't share Tim's confidence that the amulet had been destroyed. Magic powerful enough to contain a person's soul would not easily succumb to even the strongest of digestive tracts.
A low growl took Julian's attention away from the dog turd. He turned around.
Fortunately, the hell hound wasn't growling at him. It was tearing scorching claw marks into the trunk of a tree and barking up at something.
"Help me!" cried a man's voice from higher up in the tree. A chubby, purple-robed man was hanging from a branch by his arms and legs, neither of which seemed to have enough muscle to hold his fat body up there for long. "I beg you, please help me! Save me from this wretched creature of the Abyss! In the name of Trog'bahar, I implore you to – WHA–!" His situation sorted itself out when he fell out of the tree and flattened the hell hound between the ground and his own girth.
"Jesus Christ," said Cooper. "Are you okay, dude?"
"I am!" cried the fat cultist as he stood up and looked down at the unconscious dog embedded in the ground. "Trog'bahar has heard my prayer and spared my life!"
Julian frowned. "That's one possible explanation for what just happened."
Cooper scooped up the dog and held its chest to his ear. "I think it's still alive."
The fat man clapped his hands joyfully. "Trog'bahar is a merciful god!"
"Who are you?" asked Julian. "What are you doing out here in the woods by yourself?"
"My name is Sinas. My people roam the wilderness spreading the Good News of Trog'bahar!"
Cooper scrunched up his nostrils. "Your name is Sinus? Like the snot cavity in your face?"
"Come on, Cooper," said Julian. "Let's get back to the others before this dog wakes up."
"Others?" said Sinas. "Are you all familiar with the teachings of Trog'bahar?"
Julian started walking. "We're not interested, thank you."
"How does eternal salvation not interest you, wicked sinners?" Sinas was following them.
"Now you're just being an asshole," said Cooper, looking grimly ahead as he walked more briskly than usual. He looked like he was considering shaking the dog awake and setting him loose on this guy.
"I meant no insult to you, friend in unworthiness. I myself aspire to one day be worthy to be a parasite inside of a hookworm in Trog'bahar's stool. And yet you have witnessed with your own eyes the divine mercy he has shown unto me! What say you to that?"
Cooper belched long and loud. "I don't know. It's good to have goals?"
"Take heart, new friends, for you too may bask in Trog'bahar's glorious light."
"You know who might want to bask in Troglabar's stool?" said Cooper. "Our friend Dave. He's a cleric."
Julian smiled to himself. What a dick move to pull on poor unsuspecting Dave.
"Is that so?" asked Sinas enthusiastically. "Which god does he serve?"
"I don't think he serves any," said Julian. He felt a little bad about participating in this, but the real damage had already been done.
"Excellent! Where is this Dave of whom you speak?"
"Right up there." Cooper shifted the hell hound's weight on his shoulder and raised his arm to wave. "Hey Dave!"
Dave waved back hesitantly, no doubt put off by Cooper's uncharacteristic friendliness toward him.
Sinas ran ahead and grabbed a very surprised Dave by the shoulders. "Praise be this day, unworthy maggot!"
"W-W-What?"
"You got another hound," said Tim. "Nice work. Who the fuck is this guy?"
Cooper laid the unconscious dog in front of Tim, who got to work binding its legs together.
Julian dug through his bag in the back of the wagon looking for his nearly empty waterskin. "Some guy we met in the woods. He's one of those Trog'bahar cultists that Fabulazzo likes to murder and steal clothes from." He gulped back what remained of his water, hoping that the count would allow him to refill it before they left. This hope, of course, was conditional on the count not deciding to murder them all.
"And that's when I was saved!" said Sinas, wrapping up a tale which, if Dave's face was a reliable metric, had been as boring as a non-flaming pile of dog shit.
Dave sighed. "Fascinating." He caught Julian's slight smile. "Hey, maybe it's about time we lure in that last hell hound."
Julian supposed he deserved a bit of retaliatory dickishness from Dave, but an innocent magical horse didn't deserve it. But with only one hell hound left to subdue, and five people to cover it, he wouldn't necessarily be setting this horse up for instantaneous slaughter.
"Okay," said Julian. He pointed at the ground. "I'm going to summon a horse here. We don't know which way the hell hound is going to be coming from, so I need everyone to –"
"Excuse me, sir," Ravenus called from a branch above Julian's head.
Julian looked up. "Yes, Ravenus?"
"If it provides any tactical help, I believe the hound will approach from that direction." He nodded toward the rising sun.
"What makes you think that?"
"Because it's over there right now."
Tim shook his head. "Useless fucking bird."
Julian glared down at him. "Watch it!"
"I'm using American English. He can't understand me."
"Something appears to be amiss with it, sir," said Ravenus.
"Like what?" said Julian. "Is it injured? Does it have arrows sticking out of it?"
"I don't believe so, sir. It appears to be dragging its ass."
"Metaphorically? Like it's procrastinating or something?"
"No, sir. Quite literally."
Julian looked at Dave and Sinas. "You two stay here and mind the hounds. We'll go check out this last one."
"What if they wake up?" asked Dave.
Sinas slapped Dave on the back. "Fear not, unbeliever. Stay and pray with me. Trog'bahar's mercy shall keep these soulless hell-beasts in their unholy slumber!"
Dave's eyes begged not to be left alone with Sinas.
"If they wake up, hit them with your mace. But remember to specify that you want to administer subdual damage." Julian started walking east, feeling satisfied.
"There it is," said Tim. Ravenus wasn't wrong. The hell hound scooted itself forward with its front legs, dragging its ass along the leaves.
Julian motioned for them to fan out, then move in on the dog from different directions. Tim and Cooper approached from its flanks, while Julian moved cautiously, but directly, toward it head on.
It didn't take long for the hound to spot Julian. But instead of a growl, snarl, or bark. It let out a tiny flaming whimper.
"What's wrong, little guy?" asked Julian, feeling bad about the fact that he was about to clobber it over the head with his quarterstaff.
"The amulet is stuck in its ass," said Tim, approaching from the left. "I can see the chain dragging behind it."
"Should we..." Julian cringed at what he was about to suggest. "Should we just give it a good yank?"
Tim flinched like a vampire accidentally pulling up a window shade in the morning. "Fuck no! Not before that dog and I are both properly shitfaced."
"I've got a better idea," said Cooper.
"Statistically speaking, the chances of that are..." Tim smiled. "You know what? My curiosity is piqued. I really want to hear this great idea of yours."
Cooper reached down the front of his loincloth.
Tim turned around. "But I don't want to see it."
Thankfully, when Cooper removed his hand, he wasn't holding his dick. Instead, he had four or five slices of elk meat.
"Did you steal that?" asked Julian.
"It's not stealing. He offered it to us. I thought we might get hungry on the ride back home."
Tim grimaced. "We? Who the fuck wants to eat elk meat that's been rubbing against your junk all morning?"
Cooper gave Tim the finger. "There's a pouch sewn into the front of my loincloth."
That was only marginally less gross, considering the state of Cooper's loincloth, but Julian didn't see any need to bring that up right now.
Cooper approached the hell hound warily. When it made no move to bite or breathe fire on him, he set the meat down in front of it.
Tim gagged as the dog greedily gobbled up Cooper's ballsweat-marinated offering.
When Cooper gently scooped up the dog in his arms, it groaned in obvious discomfort, but still made no move to attack him.
"If this elk meat treats him like it treated me, that amulet won't be stuck for long."
Tim nodded appreciatively. "As disgusting as that is, it wasn't actually a bad idea."
When they got back to the road, Dave was sitting on the back of the wagon, engaged in his conversation with Sinas.
"My testicles hung like purple grapefruits, and I knew then that I had sinned in the eyes of Trog'bahar."
"Or maybe you should have washed your hands after you handled that raw meat. How do your giant infected balls prove the existence of –" Dave made eye contact with Julian. "Oh thank fuck!" He hopped down off the wagon and waddled toward them, pausing when he got close to Cooper. "Cooper, that one's still awake!"
"He's fine," said Cooper. "Just having some gastrointestinal issues."
Julian looked down at Tim. "We should still tie him up."
Tim stepped back and raised his hands. "I'm not tying shit until that thing's asleep."
"Fine. Cooper, turn this way so I can put a Sleep spell on him."
Cooper turned toward Julian, smacking Dave in the face with the dog's tail. "Hey, I feel a rumble in his belly. Maybe it's working."
"Maybe what's working?" asked Dave.
Dave's answer came in the form of a shit-covered amulet launched out of the hound's ass and into his forehead. That was enough to stun him, but the literally explosive diarrhea splatter that followed brought him back.
"Fuck! Fuck! FUUUUCK!" cried Dave. "It burns!"
"Rejoice!" said Sinas. "For you have been blessed by Trog'bahar!"
Blinded by magma shit, Dave turned toward Sinas's voice and rammed his face straight into Sinas's gut, grabbing his robe by the sides to keep the pressure on.
Sinas hugged Dave in return. "Yes! We are brothers in the grace of Trog'bahar."
When the shit fire on Dave's face had been extinguished, he stepped back and touched himself on the temple. "I heal me."
Dave's burns healed immediately, but the shit remained.
Sinas clapped his hands over his mouth. "A miracle! Truly you are a favored son of Trog'bahar!"
"What can I say?" said Dave. "You're a hell of an evangelist. Thank you for showing me his holy light."
Tim nudged Julian on the leg and whispered, "Is Dave full of shit right now?"
Julian shrugged, wondering the exact same thing.
Dave took Sinas's shaking hand. "Trog'bahar's healing powers are needed elsewhere. But alas, I must first deliver this wagon, these hounds, and this holy amulet to the tower at the top of this mountain."
Sinas's eyes widened. "The tower of Count Fabulazzo!"
"That's the one."
Julian suddenly realized what was going on. "Dave, no!"
"I was traveling there when your friends discovered me," said Sinas.
Dave nodded. "I thought you might have been. It seems our meeting was preordained."
"It has long been a goal of the Servants of Trog'bahar to convert him. Allow me to shoulder your burden brother. Go spread Trog'bahar's healing light, and I shall convert the heathen wizard!"
Julian glared at Dave, then looked at Sinas. "Listen to me. If you go to that tower, the count is going to murder you and feed you to these dogs."
Sinas touched Julian's face gently and gazed sympathetically into his eyes. "Poor ignorant child. You have seen Trog'bahar protect me, and yet you are still blind to his truth."
"You're making it really difficult for me to continue to try to talk you out of this."
"Your will is no match for the will of Trog'bahar."
"He's a grown-ass man," said Tim. "He can make his own decisions."
Julian glared down at Tim. "You too? You really want to send this guy to his death so that we don't have to make another trip up the mountain?"
Tim grabbed Julian's serape, led him a few steps away, then pulled him down to his level. "Someone has to turn up at Fabulazzo's place and hand over his mother's soul caked in dog shit. Unless we tie that fat fucker up and keep him locked in the cellar at the Whore's Head Inn for the rest of his miserable life, he's going to go to that tower with or without your permission."
"Speak your poisonous words aloud, cowardly cretins," Sinas called out. "Your weak-minded lies matter not to Trog'bahar."
Julian nodded. "You know what? Fuck it. Here, I'll even throw in some horses."
When the hell hounds were bound and the horses were hitched, Sinas rode off happily toward his certain death.
"Now that that's all over," said Tim. "Would anyone mind telling me what the fuck happened last night?"
Julian looked at Dave and Cooper. They nodded.
"You got high on unicorn piss and spent the whole night masturbating."
"Unicorn piss?" Tim looked appropriately shocked. "Are you serious?"
Julian, Dave, and Cooper nodded.
Tim pumped a fist. "I fucking called that shit!" |
5d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | Tossing the Salaad | Thank you for your amazing generosity.
"You shouldn't have gone off by yourself like that," said Dave. "You're lucky to be alive."
Tim gulped back a swig of stonepiss from his flask, but it still wasn't enough to make Dave shut up. "I'm alive because I was alone. You guys would have blown my cover."
Tim's high Dexterity score, along with all the ranks he'd invested in the Move Silently skill, didn't count for shit when he had three noisy assholes and a talking bird tagging along.
"We could have trailed behind you," said Julian. "Far enough back not to be heard, but close enough to move in if you got into trouble. Ravenus could have followed you and relayed your position back to us."
"I can be very discreet," said Ravenus. His shrill British accent was about as discreet as an ice pick in the ear.
Tim looked doubtfully up at Julian's familiar, perched on the top of Julian's quarterstaff. "That's all I need. Ringo the Bird blabbering in my ear while I'm trying to remain unseen. And if I did get into any trouble, I could all but guarantee that he'd be off bumping cloacas with a dire finch or some shit."
Cooper let loose a fart which sent normal-sized finches scattering from the nearby trees. "Jesus, that feels better."
"That's exactly the sort of shit I'm talking about," said Tim. Cooper's ass cloud assaulted his eyes and nose the way Ravenus's voice had done his ears. "If you guys had been with me, I never would have been able to follow Koestner the Healer and find his secret crop."
Dave looked back over his shoulder. "Maybe that would've been for the best. Ripping off a cleric doesn't sound very wise to me."
"He's not a cleric. He's a healer. I don't think he has any divine magic, just a bunch of ranks in the Heal skill. And he knows his way around herbs and shit."
"So it's about as dangerous as ripping off a pot farmer back home." Dave sighed with sarcastic relief. "I feel a lot better now."
Tim brushed some branches out of his face and continued his uphill journey through the forest. "This isn't some old assault rifle toting hippy. He's just some boring asshole I met in a bar who couldn't stop droning on about his job. I could have been an asshole about it and told him to fuck off, but instead I chose to be a decent human being and feign interest in what he had to say."
Dave huffed and puffed as he tried to keep up with the rest of them. Tim suspected Dave's short dwarf legs were a large part of his motives for bitching.
"Are you seriously trying to tell me that using your Gather Information skill to trick a guy into helping you rip him off makes you a decent human being?"
"No," said Tim. "What I'm seriously trying to tell you is shut the fuck up."
Julian and Cooper shared a chuckle, and Tim felt better that at least they were starting to lighten up a little bit.
"And besides," Tim continued. "we're not ripping anyone off. This isn't his property. He's not farming belladonna. He just found a spot where it happens to be thriving in the wild, and I followed him to it."
"I guess it doesn't sound so bad when you put it that way," said Julian. "We were just worried about you."
"It was a goddamn week ago! Let's move on with our lives, huh?"
"What, exactly, is farming?" asked Cooper, emphasizing the word with air quotes. "And who's this Bella Donna chick?"
"Farming is farming," said Tim. "And belladonna is a plant."
Cooper frowned thoughtfully. "A plant that you put your dick in?"
"Jesus Christ, Cooper! I meant farming in the most literal, non-euphemistic terms possible. And you most certainly do not want your dick anywhere near this shit. It's extremely toxic."
"So what do we want with it?" asked Julian.
Tim smiled. Finally someone was asking an intelligent question. "It also goes by the name Wolfsbane."
Julian wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. "Whew. Finally all of our wolf-related problems will be behind us." This elicited a chuckle from Dave and Cooper.
"You guys are a bunch of dumb assholes," said Tim. "Wolfsbane is a last line of defense against contracting lycanthropy."
"That's the disease that turns you into a werewolf?" asked Julian.
"Or a werebear or weretiger or wererat. There's a bunch of were-creatures in this game. People will pay a fortune to not risk waking up and discovering they've murdered and eaten their entire family."
"What a decent human being," said Dave. "So we're going to extort money out of sick people? That's your plan?"
"Of course not. We have neither an established healing practice, nor the proper networking arrangements in place. We're going to sell it to established healers in Cardinia for a fair market price. They can extort money out of sick people." Tim took another sip from his flask and nearly choked on the stonepiss when he spotted a cluster of the purple berries in the nearby underbrush.
"Here it is!" He spread his arms out to keep everyone from coming in contact with the plant, then produced four empty sacks and four sets of lambskin gloves from his backpack. He slipped on the smallest set of gloves, then carefully tore sprigs of the belladonna plant off the main stalk and put them in his sack.
"Awesome," said Dave. "Can we go home now?"
"Fuck no!" Tim passed out the other sacks and gloves. "This is just an outlier. That means we're getting close. Wait until you see how much of this shit is growing on top of the cliff."
Julian cleared his throat. "Cliff? You didn't mention anything about a cliff."
"Because it wasn't worth mentioning. We don't have to go near the edge."
"We just don't have a really good track record with potential dangers which most people could easily avoid with a modicum of common sense."
"If you don't want to come along, then don't." Tim continued up the gradually inclining forest floor. And of course, the rest of them followed.
Belladonna plants grew more and more frequently among the trees, but Tim didn't stop to pick any more. He'd only stopped at that first plant for a demonstration. There was no point in wasting time trying to grab every sprig in the forest when there was plenty more than their bags could hold waiting for them in the clearing just before the land dropped off.
An hour later, they walked out of the forest and into the clearing. The healthy green leaves and purple berries of the belladonna plants showed off their colors in the beautiful afternoon sunlight, giving off a bitter scent similar to unripened tomatoes. Thoughts of the money they were going to make warmed Tim's tiny halfling soul.
"What did I tell you?" said Tim. "Would you look at all of this shit?"
Julian nodded. "It's really very pretty."
"Hell yeah it is. Now come on and help me tear it all down."
Beyond the sea of belladonna plants, eagles soared, swooped, and dove into the canyon.
"Sir," said Ravenus, perched atop Julian's quarterstaff, staring longingly at the eagles.
Julian smiled. "Let me guess. You want to fly like an eagle?"
"Among them, anyway. Just for a bit."
"Go ahead. Let your spirit carry you."
"I beg your pardon, sir?"
"Just don't fly too far away," said Julian. As Ravenus was getting ready to launch himself into the air, he added, "And don't let too much time slip slip slip into the future."
"Are you feeling okay, sir?"
Julian sighed, seeming unfairly disappointed that his bird friend from a fantasy world didn't get his terrible Steve Miller references. "Just go."
While Ravenus flew off in search of sweet eagle cloaca action, Tim and the others worked for hours, filling their sacks with belladonna sprigs and putting a fairly large dent in the supply. Julian raised questions about damaging the local ecosystem by over-harvesting, and Dave raised similar questions about what kind of effects dumping so much product on the market at once might have on prices.
Tim gave a shit about neither of these issues. He wasn't planning to do this for a living. If they didn't tank the price of belladonna, he might consider coming back and picking the rest, or he might not. This was harder work than he'd imagined. He'd be satisfied letting this be a one-time cash grab.
"Can we go back now?" asked Cooper. "I don't feel so hot." He rubbed his belly, then groaned as the back of his loincloth danced in the wind of a long and steady fart.
Tim noticed a spot of purple near Cooper's lips. He threw a cluster of berries, as that was what he happened to have in his hand, at Cooper's head. "Have you been eating the berries?"
"I was hungry."
"Did I not explicitly tell you that those are poisonous?"
"I only had a few," said Cooper. "You said people take this to keep from turning into werewolves."
Tim balled up his fists in frustration. "Are you worried about turning into a fucking werewolf?"
"No, but if it doesn't kill them, right? I've got a pretty high Constitution score."
"But you've got shit for Intelligence," said Tim. "Those berries need to be prepared and diluted by alchemists. Jesus Christ, you're lucky to be alive. Julian, would you mind summoning some horses. We've got to get Cooper to a cleric before he dies of stupidity."
"What about Dave?" said Julian.
"Dave sucks."
"Hey!" said Dave.
"No offense. But if I remember correctly, Neutralize Poison is a Level 4 clerical spell. Is it not?"
"Yeah, but –"
"Can you cast Level 4 spells?" asked Tim, growing impatient.
"No," admitted Dave. "But Delay Poison is only a Level 2 spell."
Tim rolled his eyes and made a jerking-off motion. "Tell me, Dave. Did you happen to prepare a Delay Poison spell this morning?"
"No."
"Well there you go."
"I would have prepared one if I'd known we were going to be picking poisonous berries today," said Dave. "Don't blame me for this. You should have said something."
"I'm not blaming you. I'm merely pointing out the fact that you suck. And for the record, I did say something. I said the berries are poisonous. I was ignored. And then I said that Cooper might die if we don't summon some goddamn horses. And yet here we are, precious minutes later, still completely horseless." Tim looked expectantly at Julian.
"Okay, okay." Julian pointed at the ground in front of Tim. "Horse!" A sturdy black horse appeared, suitable for Tim and Cooper to ride together.
"Would you mind if I rode alone?" asked Dave. "Riding on the back of your horse makes my ass hurt."
Julian shrugged. "I haven't had to use any spells today. That shouldn't be a problem. Does anyone object to me using up another Mount spell?"
Cooper groaned as he lifted his foot to the stirrup. "This sucks so much."
"Who gives a shit?" Tim snapped at Julian. "The clock is ticking. Summon however the fuck many horses you're going to summon, and let's move!"
"We'll move faster if we ride separately." Julian pointed at the ground in front of Dave. "Horse!" A shorter, but stockier, brown horse appeared in front of Dave. Tim had to admit, he was impressed at Julian's improving ability to tailor the spell to suit their specific physical needs.
"Wait!" cried Dave, just as Julian was about to cast his third Mount spell. "Don't!"
"Jesus, Dave," said Tim. "Have I not mentioned that time is a factor here? Make up your goddamn mind already!"
Julian waved dismissively. "It's really no problem. I've got some scrolls in reserve back at the Whore's Head."
"But I think the ground is –"
"Horse!" said Julian. The white stallion in front of Julian was only visible for a second before Tim, his friends, and their mounts crashed through the ground. It was at least a fifteen foot drop, but fortunately, Tim and Cooper's horse absorbed most of the impact before it winked out of existence, having been crushed to death by Cooper's big half-orc ass.
Dave and Julian's horses, being riderless, had survived the fall. They were screaming and shaking their heads, generally being noisy assholes.
"Can you shut them up?" Tim asked Julian, who had stood up and was brushing the dirt off his serape.
"They're startled." Julian looked up at the hole they'd fallen through, then at the smooth dirt walls of the large cavern they were standing in. "What is this place?"
Tim looked around. The cavern was amorphous in shape, with an opening out to the cliff face, and two tunnels leading deeper into the earth. The upper part of the opening jutted out further than the bottom, which would make this place invisible to anyone looking down from the top of the cliff.
"I think someone lives here," said Dave. Being a dwarf, he had knowledge of caves and tunnels and such things, but he usually took a close look at the walls before making such claims.
"How can you tell?" asked Tim.
Dave nudged at a pile of dirt with his boot, revealing thick brown fur underneath. "If I had to guess, I'd guess bear."
Quite a lot of dirt and rocks had fallen in with them. Looking beyond the mess, Tim could see bear fur stretched out over the entire floor of the room.
"Do you think there are bears in here?" asked Julian, sounding concerned.
Tim rolled his eyes. It was difficult being the smartest person in a group by such a large margin. "It's obviously a rug made out of bear hides."
"Oh, right."
"Which means," Tim continued, "that Dave is probably correct in guessing that someone lives here. And that, subsequently, means that we should get our asses out of here before that someone comes home."
He rummaged through his backpack until he found his grappling hook and coil of rope. He swung it around a couple of times before launching it out of the hole in the ceiling. It was a good throw, getting a decent amount of distance outside the hole, which would give the grappling hook a better chance of catching some roots and digging itself solidly into the dirt.
Dragging it back slowly, he found the resistance he needed after only pulling the rope about three feet.
"I'll climb out first since I'm the lightest. Once I'm out, I'll try to find something more solid to attach the rope to. Cooper, put me up on top of this horse to give me a head start."
Cooper nodded, his brow dripping with sweat. He looked like he might throw up or die at any moment. Without a burp or a fart or even a comment about Dave's mom, he lifted Tim onto the horse's back.
"Hang in there, big guy. We're going to get you some –"
"Slargarp furbalf gur blarfarg!" shouted a creature entering the chamber from the tunnel on the left. It was a frog-like humanoid creature which Tim remembered having seen in the Monster Manual, but couldn't remember the name of. It wore a blue, expensive-looking silk robe, which Tim found clashed with its red amphibian skin. But then, with those flabby jowls, and a voice that sounded like a frog engaged in a heated argument while continuously vomiting, who could it have hoped to impress with fashion?
Tim crouched down on the back of the horse as slowly and non-threateningly as he could and whispered, "Does anyone speak, um... whatever the hell language that is?"
Cooper and Dave shook their heads.
While the frog-person continued blathering on, Julian placed his bag down on the ground at his feet and searched through it, slowly and deliberately, until he pulled out a small scroll.
This creature was bigger than Cooper, and quite obviously pissed off. Tim hoped that Julian wasn't about to cast a Magic Missile at it.
"Vocali Comprehendo!" Julian whispered as the arcane writing disappeared from the paper.
"What..." Cooper grunted between shallow breaths. "the fuck... was that?"
"Comprehend Languages," said Julian.
"That's really the incantation?" asked Dave.
"The incantation can be whatever I write onto the scroll. I've started trying to mix things up a bit. Give it a little fantasy flare, you know?"
Tim shook his head. "You should be embarrassed just to have even thought about doing that. Now will you please tell this thing to chill the fuck out?"
Julian frowned. "The spell only allows me to understand what it's saying. It won't understand anything I say."
Tim should have guessed that much. "Fine. What is it saying?"
Julian listened to the creature's ranting for a moment, then began translating. "... invade my home... destroy my ceiling... the dirt all over the rug... dire bear skin... very expensive..."
The frog-person was very animated as it complained about its cave décor, repeatedly pointing at the ceiling and floor with the four-inch-long black claws at the fingertips of his webbed hands.
"I only want to be left alone!" Julian continued his translation, picking up more complete sentences now. "Why are there horses in my living room? Who will clean up this mess?"
Julian took a step forward, placed a hand on his chest, and gestured back at Tim, Dave, and Cooper with the other hand. "We will clean up this mess!" He spoke loudly and extra clearly, like an American tourist in a foreign country.
"He's not deaf, dumbass," said Tim. "Speaking louder isn't going to help. And besides, we're not cleaning shit."
Julian glared back at him. "I'm trying to use my Diplomacy skill."
"Fuck your Diplomacy skill, and fuck Froggy McFuckface. We've got somewhere to be, in case you've forgotten."
"And what do you think he's going to do if we just try to ditch him after we wrecked his house? With a high enough Diplomacy check, I might be able to convince him to let us go."
"You think you're going to do that by shouting at him in a language he doesn't under–"
GWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHRRRRRP!
As big as this bastard was, nothing his size had any business croaking a noise that loud. Tim stood wide-eyed and petrified with fear. |
5d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | THBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBPT | Tim didn't need to be able to turn around to recognize Cooper's ass answering the croak. The intensity of the smell, the look on frog-guy's face, and the accompanying wet splatter told Tim that Cooper had let out more than just a legendary fart, and that he'd done so on this guy's beloved dire bear skin rug.
Tears glistened in the creature's bulging eyes as it stared in stunned silence at Cooper.
"We're so fucked," said Dave.
Cooper squeaked out one more after-fart. "That was just what I needed. I'm feeling one hundred percent again."
In a shocking display of acrobatics for something which appeared to have a Jabba-like physique, the frog monster leaped over their heads. It landed behind Cooper, careful to plant its webbed feet on either side of the belladonna berry studded shit puddle. Eyes bulging now even more than they had been, the creature drew back its wide lips, revealing purple gums and pointed yellow teeth, which it sank into Cooper's shoulder.
"Yeeeeeeeooooooowww!" Cooper screamed in agony, which was understandable considering the circumstances. Then he went cross-eyed and followed it up with a cry of, "YOOOOOOOOOOO!", which Tim found to be somewhat less conventional.
"Magic Missile!" cried Julian, and a golden arrow of magical energy flew out of his palm, striking their host in the side of his fat rubbery neck.
Tim shook off the residual effects of the frog monster's stunning croak, cocked his crossbow, and looked for an opening.
"I'm really angry!" shouted Cooper. Normally, it was just a phrase he used to trigger his Barbarian Rage, but his tone suggested this time it was also a genuine statement of his current feelings. His muscles inflated until he was as big as his assailant. He reached back and grabbed the frog monster's head with both hands, pulled him over his shoulder, and body slammed him right into his shit puddle.
Tim now had the opening he'd been looking for. He pulled the trigger on his crossbow, planting a bolt in the frog monster's belly and adding injury to insult.
Dave came down hard with his mace, but the frog monster rolled out of the way. He returned the attack with a half-orc shit covered fist to the side of Dave's face, then hopped over the horses to the mouth of the cave.
"We've got him on the ropes," said Tim. "Julian, get rid of those horses."
Julian snapped his fingers twice, and his magically summoned horses winked out of existence, leaving their host nothing to hide behind.
The frog monster was bloodied and bruised. His entire right arm was slathered in Cooper shit, all the way down to his fingertips. He'd seen better days for sure, but he didn't appear to be at death's door just yet.
"Everybody be cool," said Julian. "We can talk this out."
Cooper stomped toward the frog monster, still in his Rage, and not looking very interested in conversation.
Froggy didn't appear to be up for a chat either. At least, not with them. He was hurriedly mumbling something to himself, like he was trying to get his thoughts sorted out before Cooper got there and beat the shit out of him.
"Cooper!" cried Julian. "Get out of the way! He's casting a –"
Tim raised his arm to shield his face from whatever was coming. He was anticipating the whole cavern to be lit up in flames or lightning bolts or horses. He would have had to use up a lot of guesses before he predicted a second frog monster, naked and furiously rubbing its genital area with both hands, to appear on the dire bear rug.
Cooper halted his advance, and his body shrank to its normal size as he backed away. Even the frog monster looked surprised at what he'd summoned.
But perhaps no one was more surprised than the newest guest to the party. It kept its hands where they were, but flattened them, as if now more concerned with modesty than pleasure. It looked at Cooper, then at Dave, then at Julian and Tim. Finally he looked back up at the cave's inhabitant.
"Glafblar worgflum sclubly frit?"
"Why have you summoned me here?" Julian resumed the translation. "I was in the middle of something."
"These creatures invaded my home. I require your assistance in killing them."
"Fuck you! I'm not even dressed."
"You can wear my robe."
"I'm not wearing that. It's got shit all over it!"
"So does my rug. The half-orc shat on it!"
The naked frog monster looked at the shit puddle on the rug, laughed, then resumed croaking in their horrible language.
While the two frog monsters were engaged in their heated argument, Tim's saw a potential, albeit slim, chance to escape. He gestured for the others to come to him.
As Julian, Dave, and Cooper approached, Tim kept his eyes on the red creatures, who were so involved in their bickering that they didn't even glance his way. When everyone was close enough, Tim pointed a thumb back at the tunnels. The others nodded, and they all started backing toward the one on the right.
Naturally, Tim hoped they would find a back door to this home, through which they could escape. He realized that the odds of that being the case weren't great, but the tunnel might lead to something that could help them. Maybe they'd find a place to hide, and sneak out later while the creatures were asleep. Maybe they'd find some badass weapons, or something with which Tim could construct a trap of some sort. Maybe they'd just find a dead end, but anything was better than waiting around for those two amphibious assholes to murder them.
They had inched about twenty feet into the tunnel by the time they felt confident enough to turn around and walk normally. Shortly after that, the frog monster argument faded away.
"Light," Julian whispered when it became too dark to see. Light illuminated the tunnel, coming from a copper coin in his hand. After cupping his other hand over it so that the light wouldn't be too bright, he opened it back up enough to let some light shine on Cooper's shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Cooper shook his head.
"Do you need Dave to heal your shoulder?"
"It's not my shoulder that needs healing," said Cooper. "I've been... violated."
Tim pulled out his flask in the fear that Cooper was going to elaborate.
"I don't understand," said Dave. "Did it feel like more of a kiss than a bite or something?"
"I'm not talking about the bite, dumbshit. He shoved his finger up my asshole."
That was exactly where Tim feared this conversation was headed. He knew that puddle wasn't big enough to coat the creature's entire arm like that.
Unsurprisingly, no one jumped at the opportunity to follow up on Cooper's revelation. The awkward silence which followed was broken by someone else. Ahead of them, not too far up the tunnel, someone groaned.
"Who is that?" asked Julian.
Tim swallowed hard. "I only hope it's a who." Relieved as he was to have a distraction from the conversation about Cooper's ass fingering, he didn't want to have to face any undead.
"Maybe we should just hang out here," said Dave.
Tim shook his head. "That won't do us any good. If there's something to fight down here, I'd rather face it alone than be sandwiched between it and those frog fuckers."
"Do they not have names?" asked Julian.
"How the fuck should I know? We weren't properly introduced."
"I wasn't talking about individual names. I meant a name for their race. Are they called frog fuckers in the books?"
"No," said Dave. "I think I know what they are, but I can't remember the name. It's something like salad."
Julian frowned. "There's seriously a monster in this game called salad?"
"I didn't say they were called salad," said Dave. "I said something like salad. I'm trying to remember. Saald, saladi, slaa–"
"Saladin!" said Cooper, a little too excitedly.
Tim smiled. "Nice try, Coop. You're thinking of the wrong game. Saladin is one of the world leaders you can play in Civ."
"Is someone there?" said the groaning voice. It didn't sound like a malevolent undead voice. Strangely, it sounded sort of familiar.
With Cooper taking the lead, his greataxe held ready but not necessarily threateningly, they proceeded cautiously down the tunnel until it opened up into a small round chamber. The air was stagnant this far back. It smelled like a nursing home in a swamp.
Instead of being full of gold, or hookers, or magical weapons with bonuses against frog monsters, it was bereft of anything except an old bearded man, tied up and half dead on the floor.
The old man raised his head and looked at Tim. "Help... me."
Suddenly, the face and the voice connected in Tim's mind. "Koestner the Healer?"
"I... remember you," said Koestner. "How did you... find me?"
Tim looked at his feet. "That was, um... a coincidence."
"Blessed be the gods! They've sent you here to... rescue me."
"Yes!" said Tim, relieved to be able to avoid a conversation about statistical improbability. "That was probably it."
"Czessaar, the inhabitant of this cave, captured me while I was... harvesting belladonna. I feared he would eat me. But he had more sinister plans in mind."
"His name is Caesar?" asked Julian.
"Czessaar," Koestner corrected him.
"Caesar Salad?"
Tim nudged Julian, then looked down at Koestner. "What did he do to you?"
"He inserted his finger... into my –"
"Stop right there," said Cooper. "It's his kink. Motherfucker did the same thing to me."
"Then you are in... grave danger," said Koestner. "For you may have become... infected as I have."
Cooper reached up under his loincloth and gave his ass a good scratch. "Goddammit. Am I going to get fucking frog AIDS?"
"Let us hurry to a cleric. I fear my time... is almost up."
Julian snorted out a laugh, then looked very guilty about it. "I'm sorry. He said lettuce."
"I'm a cleric," said Dave while Tim untied the ropes binding Koestner's hands behind his back.
Koestner sat up and rubbed the circulation back into his wrists. "The gods are good indeed! Please, dwarf. May the power of the gods flow through you and remove my disease."
"That's a third level spell," said Dave. "I've got a Cure Light Wounds, if that helps."
Koestner frowned. "I'm afraid my disease has... progressed beyond your ability to treat it. We must make haste to Cardinia."
"There's a problem with that," said Julian as he helped the old healer to his feet. "Czessaar summoned himself a friend. There's two of those things out there now."
"Their kind has... no friends," said Koestner. "They can summon each other when... desperate enough, but they're as likely to bicker... amongst themselves as they are to... cooperate and fight against a... common enemy."
Julian nodded. "That matches up pretty well with our experience so far."
"The summoned one will... return from whence it came in an... hour's time."
"How long ago did Czessaar summon..." Julian paused for a moment. "Potato?"
Tim frowned. "It couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes."
"I have... no time to waste," said Koestner. "You must confront them both, and we must... leave for Cardinia at once."
"Fuck that," said Tim. "Another forty-five minutes isn't going to kill you."
Koestner groaned. "I fear it may."
"Let's sneak back up there and check it out," said Julian. "Who knows? Maybe the argument escalated and they've killed each other by now."
"Good thinking," said Dave. "Or maybe they settled their differences and went down the other tunnel for some make-up sex."
The conversation came to a conspicuous halt as everyone stared at Dave.
"What?"
"What the fuck, Dave?" said Cooper.
"Who wants that image in their minds?" asked Julian. "Why couldn't they be going on a picnic together or something?"
"My suggestion was every bit as valid as yours."
"I'm afraid it was not," said Koestner. "For their kind do not... copulate as we do."
Cooper scratched his ass some more. "Do they all have that weird ass-fingering fetish?"
"You're one to talk," said Tim. "You can't keep your fingers away from your ass for five minutes."
"I'm sorry. I've got an itch. It's too deep to scratch properly."
Koestner doubled over in pain. "We must go now!"
"Keep your voice down," said Tim. "I'll go scout ahead."
The pleading look on Koestner's face suggested that he didn't want to wait, but he nodded.
Tim took Julian's glowing coin and ran as fast and quietly as he could, cupping his hands around the coin to let out only as much light as he needed to see where he was going. He slowed down as he heard the two salad monsters shouting at each other. He didn't know what they were saying, but they seemed even angrier than they had been before.
Sudden interruptions punctuated their speech, which Tim hoped meant that their quarrel had escalated beyond mere words.
When the light from the cave entrance and the hole in the ceiling was sufficient, Tim pocketed the coin. They were making so much noise that he didn't bother trying to be too stealthy, but he stayed close to the wall to stay out of sight as much as he could.
The fight had indeed come to blows. The two creatures clawed wildly at each other, tearing deep gashes into each other's flesh. Caesar's shit robe was torn to shreds, barely hanging onto his body. Potato's naked red flesh looked almost as bad. Their blood, thin and brown like Balsamic dressing, was splattered all over the cavern's floor and walls.
Caesar lunged at Potato, his mouth wide open as he went for the throat. Potato ducked and grabbed Caesar by the ankle, tripping him. With a furious croak, Potato grabbed Caesar by the right thigh and the back of his neck, and lifted him over his head. He struggled the few steps to the cave entrance and tossed Caesar out.
Caesar's final croak started loud, but faded quickly until it stopped very abruptly.
Potato hunched over, bloody and exhausted. It was a hard-earned victory.
Tim thought that one well-placed Sneak Attack might be all it took to put down this crouton-shitting motherfucker for good, and wondered if he'd get full Experience Points for the kill. Slowly and carefully, he loaded a bolt into his crossbow and pulled it back.
When it clicked into place, he might as well have set off fireworks in a shipping container. Either the acoustics of this particular spot were astoundingly well-suited to transmitting sound waves or, more likely, he'd rolled a natural 1 on a Stealth check. Either way, the crossbow's click went bouncing all over the walls of the goddamn cavern.
Potato whirled around, still catching his breath and still bleeding. But his wounds seemed a little shallower than they had been just a minute ago.
Tim had some doubt now as to whether a single bolt might finish him off. Certainly not now that he'd been spotted and wouldn't get his Sneak Attack bonus to damage. He cautiously took a step back, prepared to shoot, run, and scream.
But Potato's froggy eyes didn't look angry. He flicked out hit tongue a few times, then sat down on a large flat rock next to the wall.
"Flub grub," he said, gesturing at Tim's rope, still hanging from the hole in the ceiling.
Tim lowered his crossbow and bowed his head slightly. "Flub grub."
Potato croaked out a small laugh, which bothered Tim more than it should have.
Tim backed into the tunnel until he lost sight of Potato, then pulled the glowing coin out of his pocket and began running back to his friends. After he'd been running for some time, the light suddenly went out.
Stonepiss, inertia, and the distraction of sudden blindness made a lousy cocktail. Tim misjudged the upcoming curve and smacked his face against the wall.
"Son of a bitch!" He pulled out his flask, swallowed back some stonepiss, then poured a little onto the scrapes on his nose, eyebrow, and cheek. It stung.
"Tim?" Julian's voice echoed down the tunnel. It didn't sound too far away. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Tim snapped back. "No thanks to your shitty coin."
Tim's visibility returned as soft white light rounded the bend in the tunnel. Julian and Dave led the way. Cooper followed with the gait of someone walking while clenching their ass cheeks. Koestner rode piggyback. Tim couldn't tell if the poor old bastard was alive or dead.
Julian held up a second glowing coin and winced at the sight of Tim's face. "Sorry about that. Light is a Zero Level spell, so the duration isn't so long. So what's up with the two salad monsters?"
"One salad monster," Tim corrected him. "Potato chucked Caesar off the cliff. Then he spotted me and indicated that we're free to leave."
"That's strange," said Dave. "He seemed pretty prone to violence."
Tim stood up and had another sip from his flask. "It makes sense when you think about it from the point of an extremely spiteful person. This isn't his home. He resented being summoned. Letting us go is just one more Fuck you to the guy who spoiled his wank time."
Dave nodded. "Still, we should hurry before he changes his mind."
"Agreed."
"What was that clicking noise I heard a few minutes ago?" asked Cooper.
Tim glared down at his crossbow. "Shitty roll."
When they reached the main chamber, Potato hadn't moved from where he'd been sitting when Tim left him. He looked up at them, but remained where he was.
"Just be cool," Tim whispered. "Don't make any sudden moves, but be ready to fight if you have to."
The corners of Potato's wide lips stretched back, like he was amused at how cautiously they were inching toward the rope. He waved a webbed hand at them. "Flub grub."
Tim folded his hands and bowed. "Flub grub." This elicited another croaking chuckle from Potato, and this time also from Julian.
"What's so goddamn funny about that?" asked Tim. "Am I saying it wrong?"
"First of all, your accent is ridiculous," said Julian. "You need more of a belch in it."
Tim sucked in some air and tried belching out the words again. "Flub grub."
Potato laughed again.
"Fuck you, frog!"
"That was better," said Julian.
"Then why's he still laughing?"
"Because you just told him that he and his friends are free to leave."
"Well how the fuck was I supposed to know what it meant? I thought he was saying hello or peace or some shit."
Cooper set Koestner down on the rug. The poor old bastard was asleep and barely breathing.
"He's going to die if we don't get him to a cleric really soon," said Dave.
Tim nodded. "Same plan as before. I'll go up first and make sure the rope is secure enough for Julian. Once Julian gets up there, he can summon a horse for us to anchor the rope to so that we can get everyone else –"
"YAAAAAAAA!" Koestner moaned, his eyes suddenly wide open. Then his head tilted to the side. His eyes remained open, but there was no longer any life left in them.
"Shit," said Tim. "We lost Koestner."
"His heart's still beating," said Cooper.
Tim looked at the old healer's chest. There was definitely some movement going on under the shirt, but Tim would be damned if that was a beating heart.
"We should probably stand back."
A red stain blossomed on Koestner's shirt, then quickly grew.
Cooper took an extra step back. "What in all the fucks is going –" |
5d6 | Robert Bevan | [
"comedy",
"fantasy"
] | [
"humor",
"short stories",
"Caverns and Creatures C"
] | SPLAT | Koestner's chest exploded, splattering blood in every direction as something like a blood-and-mucous-covered Darwin fish flopped out onto the carpet next to Koestner's now unquestionably dead body, belching and hissing and flapping bodily fluids everywhere.
"JESUS!" cried Dave. He moved in to kick the ungodly abomination away just as Tim caught a wide smile and a glint of joy in Potato's eyes.
"Dave! No! It's a –"
Dave kicked the gruesome polywog toward the mouth of the cave.
"– baby." Tim retained a sliver of hope that, with a high enough Diplomacy roll from Julian, they might still be able to talk their way out of this when the disgusting newborn salad monster stopped just short of falling off the edge.
Flip. Flap. Flop. Over the edge it went, and with it the last of Tim's hope.
Potato let out a croak that shook more dirt and rocks loose from the broken ceiling, then ran to the mouth of the cavern.
"What the fuck were you thinking?" Tim asked Dave.
Dave shrugged. "Mostly, 'Holy shit, that's gross! Get it away from me!' How was I supposed to know it was a baby salad monster?"
"The red skin didn't give it away?"
Dave pointed at Potato, still grieving by the mouth of the cavern. "He has red skin. The little alien thing was only red because it was covered in liquid Koestner!"
"Maybe we should fall back and try to hide," said Julian. "Potato is still on a timer, right?"
"Or we could push it over the edge," suggested Dave.
Julian gripped his quarterstaff like he was ready to club Dave in the face with it. "What the hell is wrong with you? He's grieving for the loss of a child. A child that you murdered! And your first thought is to shove him off a cliff?"
"I'm just being practical. That thing murdered one of its own kind just for interrupting a wank session. What do you think it will do to us?"
"It was more complicated than that. There were nuances to the conversation that I couldn't translate properly, but the gist was that –"
"Guys," said Cooper, loudly enough to shut the rest of them up. "He's gone."
Tim, Julian, and Dave looked at the mouth of the cavern. Sure enough, it was bereft of salad monsters.
"Has it been an hour already?" asked Julian. "It doesn't feel like an hour. Did he just disappear?"
Cooper shook his head sadly. "He jumped."
"Whoa," said Julian. "That's messed up."
Dave clapped his hands. "On the bright side, the problem sorted itself out."
Julian's fist shook, like it was going to explode if he didn't use it to punch Dave in the face. He settled for a slap. It was underwhelming.
"What was that for?" said Dave, rubbing his cheek.
"How can you be such a despicable unfeeling asshole? Someone just took their own life right in front of you!"
Tim wondered if they'd get Experience Points for driving someone to suicide, but he kept his thoughts to himself.
"I'm sorry I'm not salting the mashed Potato with my tears," said Dave. "I've got more important concerns right now."
"What could you possibly be concerned about?" asked Julian. "I thought the problem just sorted itself out."
Dave frowned, suddenly looking very serious. "This is just a theory I'm working with, so I don't want anybody to freak out. But I think Cooper may be pregnant."
After a moment of stunned silence, Julian started laughing. After a moment of no one else joining in, he stopped.
"Are you guys serious? Is this a Bible Belt thing? Do they not teach Sex Ed in Mississippi public schools?"
"It's not a Bible Belt thing," said Tim. "It's a Caverns & Creatures thing. We all just witnessed a man giving birth a few minutes ago, or don't you recall?"
"That's right," said Dave. "And now that I think about it, I do seem to remember reading in the Monster Manual about a creature that has egg pellets in its claws."
Cooper grimaced. "Was it the salad monster?"
"I don't remember for sure, but that's looking like a good bet. It would also account for why it... violated you and Koestner the way it did."
"I'm pretty sure I'd remember if the Monster Manual had said anything about ass-fingering."
"With a little bit of frontier surgery and a successful Heal check, the egg pellet can be removed if detected early enough. Digging a pellet from out of a person's rectum would be more..."
"Challenging?" said Tim.
"Unpleasant?" said Julian.
"Intimate?" said Cooper.
"I was going to say 'invasive'. Even with the right tools, a person making a Heal check with that kind of Difficulty Class is just as likely to kill a patient as they are to successfully remove the pellet. Without the right tools..." Dave shuddered.
"I have lock picks in my bag," said Tim. "You can use those if you need them."
"Me?"
"You're the only one of us who put any ranks into the Heal skill. You're Cooper's best chance."
"I don't have that many ranks," said Dave. "Did I not adequately explain how bad it could go for Cooper if I fail?"
Tim pointed at Koestner's gory remains. "We just saw how bad it will go for him if you don't try."
Cooper cleared his throat. "If I may weigh in, I've had all the fingers I want up my ass today."
"But Cooper," said Julian. "You're going to die!"
Cooper looked down at him. "We're all going to die. When my time comes, I don't want my last sensation to be that of Dave fingering my asshole."
Dave's eyes lit up. "There may be another way!"
"I'll take it!" said Cooper excitedly. Then he eyed Dave warily. "Hang on. Does this other way involve your dick?"
"No."
"Okay, cool. What's the plan?"
Dave lifted up his sack of belladonna sprigs. "Eat as many of these berries as you can stuff down your pie hole."
"Jesus Christ," said Tim. "You are the worst healer in the history of this game. He's not turning into a fucking werewolf. He has a salad monster egg up his ass."
"I'm aware of that."
"I'm glad we're on the same page. Are you also aware that not killing Cooper is one of our objectives here?"
"He'll be fine. It's just like you said before about alchemists having to refine the berries for their medicinal properties. The same goes for concentrating them into a lethal dose of poison. As they grow in the wild, they won't kill him. They'll just give him a severe case of the shits."
That all sounded reasonable to Tim, but one thing bothered him. "If you knew all that about belladonna, why didn't you say anything about it when Cooper ate them before?"
Dave shrugged. "I wanted to go home."
"Asshole." Tim looked at Cooper. "Okay, start stuffing your face I guess."
"And clench your cheeks," added Dave. "Resist letting go as long as you can. Remember, you're trying to build up as much pressure as possible to dislodge the egg." He paused and stroked his beard. "When you go, you're probably going to shit like a fire hose. Would you mind standing by the mouth of the cavern and pointing your ass that way?"
Julian shook his head. "You've really got it in for poor Potato. Killing a baby in front of him and celebrating his suicide wasn't enough. Now you want to shower their remains in explosive diarrhea?"
"I was thinking about us. What if we have trouble climbing out of the hole and have to spend the night in here? Cooper smells bad enough as it is."
Julian sighed. "Fine."
The choice between potentially poisoning himself and having Dave dig around in his rectum wasn't much of a choice for Cooper at all. He'd been munching on belladonna berries the entire time Dave and Julian were arguing, putting a whole sprig in his mouth and filtering off the berries with his teeth when he pulled it back out.
When they decided where he should shit, he didn't miss a beat. He grabbed his belladonna sack, waddled ass-clenchingly to the mouth of the cavern, got down on his knees, and continued eating the whole time. His ass pointed outward like the Guns of Navarone.
"This is going to be epic," Cooper said through a purple-toothed grin. He winced in pain, then gobbled up another sprig's worth of berries.
"Hold on as long as you can," said Dave.
Julian turned around, so as to avoid the coming literal shit show. "I'm amazed he's held on this long."
There's nothing here for his Charisma score to fuck up," said Tim. "If we were talking to a princess right now, or applying for a bank loan or something, he'd have shit himself eight times already. If I had to guess, I'd say this is more of a Constitution check to see how long he can maintain control of his sphincter."
Cooper set the sack aside and cradled his head on the floor. "Oh sweet Jesus." He paused to wince and catch his breath. "I've got something epic brewing. I kind of wish we could video this."
Tim didn't want to say it out loud, but he'd been thinking the same thing.
A webbed red hand with black claws gripped the edge of the floor behind Cooper.
"Cooper!" cried Tim. "Behind you!"
"A... few... more... seconds."
The salad monster's other hand appeared to the right of Cooper. This one held the horrible baby salad. It was injured, but still alive. The hand released the child, then sought a more solid grip on the floor.
"It wasn't a suicide after all!" said Julian. "It was a rescue mission. There must have been a ledge down there or something."
Tim grabbed Dave's arm and pulled him toward the saladling. "Heal that horrible thing as a show of goodwill."
Cooper looked up from his arms. "What the fuck are you guys talking –" He caught sight of the slimy pulsating blob of gore and claws next to him.
"Glorbp," said the baby salad monster. It was either its first word, or just a burp.
"JESUS!" cried Cooper as his arm sprang back like a mouse trap, sending the baby sailing back out into the open air.
Potato's head emerged above Cooper's ass just in time to witness its adopted child re-murdered.
"SKWAAAARRRLLLB!" His froggy eyes bulging furiously, he opened his mouth wide and bit down hard on Cooper's exposed ass cheeks.
"Fuck!" cried Cooper, already racked with pain. Ironically, after the initial sting, Cooper's face lightened with relief. He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh.
Potato's slitted pupils turned round as his cheeks began to expand.
Julian covered his mouth. "Is what I think is happening actually happening?"
"Cooper's getting his ass eaten out by a giant frog, and he's really enjoying it?" said Dave.
"That's equally horrifying, but not what I had in mind."
Potato's face inflated like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, looking like it was about to burst. Tim, unable to look away, shielded his face from what he feared might be an explosion of frog brains and half-orc shit. But instead of exploding, Potato vanished. He just popped right out of existence like a murdered magical horse.
Cooper, his ass having released and having been released, collapsed forward to lie flat on the ground. "What just happened?"
"Potato's hour was up," said Tim. "How's your ass?"
"Kinda stings." Cooper flexed his cheeks a few times, then looked up at Tim. "But the itch is gone! I think it worked!"
Julian walked past Cooper and looked down over the edge. "There is a ledge! Egg landed on it again. I think he's still alive."
"Who the fuck is Egg?" asked Tim.
"Egg Salad. The baby. I thought it a fitting name, since he just hatched... in a manner of speaking."
Dave frowned. "He's a tough little bastard. Should we drop some rocks down on him and finish him off?"
Julian's jaw dropped. "How can your soul be that empty?"
"What? I was trying to be humane!"
"You're a goddamn cleric! You have magical healing powers, yet you think the most humane thing to do is drop rocks on an injured baby?"
"And what if I healed it?" asked Dave. "What then? Are we going to leave it here to starve to death? Or raise it as one of our own, so it can grow up and finger-fuck some poor unsuspecting asshole, impregnating him with its own chest-exploding offspring?"
"I don't know. But Egg's an innocent creature right now. He's never hurt anyone."
"It's part of his nature. That's how those things reproduce. Maybe it's not inherently evil, but taking it back to town is dangerous and irresponsible."
Julian folded his arms. "I didn't say we definitely should take it back to town. I just think we might spare a moment or two to think about other options before we rush straight to crushing it with rocks."
Tim saw something in the corner of his eye that startled him. Fearing another salad monster attack, he raised his crossbow, but stopped just short of pulling the trigger and shooting Ravenus.
"There you are, sir," said Ravenus, landing next to Koestner's exploded corpse. He plucked out an eyeball and gulped it down. "What did I miss?"
Julian turned away. "We got a little sidetracked. How'd it go with the eagles?"
"Not so well. Did you know they mate for life?"
"I did not."
"That's no way to get the most of out of life if you ask me. I tried to talk some sense into them, but they just weren't having it."
Tim admired Ravenus's moxy, trying to talk a guy he just met into letting him have a quickie with his wife.
Ravenus gobbled up Koestner's other eye. "That feels so much better. There was some dying creature on a ledge just below here, but its eyes were so small, they only made me hungrier."
"What?" Julian dropped to his knees and looked over the edge. "Egg!"
"Uh-oh," said Dave. "Looks like Ravenus is a baby killer. Are you going to turn him in, Julian?"
"It wasn't... He couldn't..." Julian stammered. "He didn't mean to. He's a bird. It's part of his n–" He stopped himself mid-syllable.
"Part of his what?" Dave poked a finger in his ear, pretending to clean it. "I didn't quite catch that."
"Fuck you, Dave."
Cooper laughed. "Well said."
"Cheer up," said Tim. "Cycle of life and all that. If it makes you feel any better, I suspect that, wherever Potato is now, he's probably got a bun in the oven." |
Subsets and Splits