by A. J. Markam
Five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds –
thump!
From somewhere waaaay down below the ramp came the muted sound of impact, and the screaming suddenly stopped.
“Shit…” I muttered, horrified.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Alaria said.
“Stig, get over here, we need to get out of this cage!” I yelled.
“Just a minute, boss,” he said from inside the fire. “Aaaaaaaahhhh…”
“NOW, STIG!”
Stig grumbled, but waddled out of the bonfire and over to the cage, leaving a trail of ash behind him. “What?”
“Get us out of here!”
He looked around. “How?”
“Sinterina pressed a lever to drop the damn thing on us. Maybe there’s one to raise – ”
I was interrupted by the eeeeeEEEEEE of shrieking metal.
I looked over to see Alaria gritting her teeth and pulling two metal bars of our cage apart.
Holy SHIT!
I knew she was strong, but –
“WAIT A SECOND – you knew you could get us out of here all along?!” I yelled.
She shrugged. “Yeah, so?”
“So you could have let us out at ANY point!”
“Yeah, so?”
“SO WHY DIDN’T YOU GET US OUT?!”
“Well, I was kind of hoping we’d get to fuck Sinterina again.” Alaria gestured towards the end of the ramp. “Well, I mean, not now, obviously – ”
“Never mind!” I yelled as I squeezed through the gap in the bars. “Come on, we’ve got to go save Baby Zeebus!”
“Look who’s excited about Zeebusmas all of a sudden,” Alaria teased.
“I JUST WANT TO SAVE THE DAMN BABY.”
“Okay, okay, whatever.”
Alaria started to squeeze through the bars –
But couldn’t.
Her parka and wings were catching on the other side.
“Hold on,” she said, shed the parka, and tried repositioning herself.
No go.
Far away in the night there was an explosion.
BOOM!
Alaria and I stared at each other in horror.
Sinter Klaws had started his attack.
“Shit!” I yelled.
This was bad. I needed Alaria to fly me out to the sleigh!
“I’m gonna go sit in the fire again,” Stig muttered, and turned back towards the pit.
Then I remembered there wasn’t a floor on the damn cage. “Lift it up!”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Wow, that was stupid…”
She bent down and tried to get her fingers under the bar that made up the cage’s perimeter.
“It’s like it’s glued to the floor,” she said, frowning. She stood, grabbed the bars, and heaved upwards –
Nothing.
“What’s wrong?!” I asked frantically.
“I think it’s magically bound to the floor.”
SHIT.
Magic sucked sometimes – especially when it wasn’t your magic.
“Hold on, I can do this,” Alaria said nervously, and went back to pulling the bars.
Unfortunately, the farther apart they got, the harder they were to budge, because she barely moved them a millimeter no matter how hard she pulled.
“Ian,” she said worriedly, “this could take a little while – ”
Another explosion in the distance.
BOOM!
“We don’t have a little while!” I exclaimed.
I looked around the stables wildly as she kept straining at the bars. There wasn’t another sleigh. Hell, even if there had been, there were only two more reindeer –
Reindeer.
That was it.
“STIG, come with me!” I yelled as I raced for the nearest reindeer stall.
“Aw, come on, boss,” Stig complained from where he was sitting in the bonfire.
“NOW! We have to save Baby Zeebus!”
“Man…” Stig grumbled as he shuffled out of the fire again.
I opened the stall and let the reindeer out.
As soon as I did, its eyes began to glow red.
“Damn it,” I muttered. Sinter Klaws didn’t seem to have this problem – but it was readily solved as I pulled a carrot out of my bag and shoved it in the reindeer’s mouth.
It immediately grew placid and its eyes went dark again.
I hauled myself up on top of the reindeer’s back, grabbed its antlers, and yelled, “Come on, Stig!”
The imp bounded up on a nearby post and jumped onto my back.
I looked over at Alaria, who was still straining to pull apart the bars.
“We’ll meet you up there!” I shouted at her.
“Okay – go!” she yelled back, and I pushed forward on the reindeer’s antlers.
Immediately the deer began to gallop forward.
As we neared the end of the ramp, my stomach twisted in fear –
This is going to work, right?
The reindeer leapt into the air –
And began to plummet.
“AAAAAAAAAH!” I screamed.
“AAAAAAAAAH!” Stig screamed behind him as he wrapped his tiny muppet arms around my neck.
Hundreds of feet beneath us was a ledge where I could see a charred human figure face-down in the snow. Beyond that was an even steeper drop of thousands of feet.
As the reindeer continued to fall, we were rapidly approaching Sinterina’s fate.
Not the charbroiled part, just the splat.
“PULL UP, BOSS, PULL UP!” Stig screamed.
I yanked as hard as I could on the reindeer’s antlers –
And suddenly the animal leveled off.
I swear to God I thought I heard it snicker in a wheezy, horse-like way.
That little FUCKER –
Another explosion reverberated through the mountains.
BOOM!
No time to get pissed about reindeer. Sinter Klaws was destroying the town.
I pulled back on the reindeer’s antlers, putting us into a climb, and then banked hard to the left.
As we rose above the roof of the stable, I could see the flickering lights of Vortzplasse miles away.
High above the town circled a miniature sleigh.
And eight tiny reindeer.
And the worst mall Santa you’ve ever fuckin’ seen.
I turned the reindeer towards the town –
But forgot about the anti-aircraft guns below.
POOM! POOM! POOM!
Fireworks blasted all around us in sparkles of red and white.
POW! POW! POW!
crackle crackle crackle crackle crackle
“AAAAAAAH!” Stig screamed.
“AAAAAAAH!” I yelled as I pulled the reindeer into a steep climb and guided us out of the range of the cannons.
“Zeebus, boss,” Stig growled.
The use of the baby’s name in vain was oddly endearing.
“Sorry,” I chuckled, and sped the reindeer towards the town.
As we approached the village, I could see a couple of smoking ruins already. People were running through the streets, screaming as hordes of evil snowmen chased them.
Sinter Klaws was circling the town in his sleigh, laughing maniacally as he held up another one of his bombs.
He hadn’t seen us.
Yet.
Suddenly a computer window popped up.
Sinter Klaws Is Coming To Town!
This villain is already at the top of the Naughty List. Stop his ‘rain’ of terror and save the town of Vortzplasse!
10,000 XP
I hit ‘Accept.’
I’d already accepted the quest to kill the bastard, but now I had the extra burden of stopping him before he could do any more damage to the village.
The only question was how…
“Stig, we’ve got to get that sleigh away from the town!”
“How we gonna do that, boss?”
How, indeed?
> I could try to pull some sort of old-time Western wagon shit, pull up alongside the reindeer train, and jump onto them –
But would that even work?
And in the time it took me to do it, Sinter could just unload all his bombs on Vortzplasse.
What the fuck am I supposed to do?
We needed a distraction to keep Sinter occupied, and we needed a way to steer those damn reindeer away from the village.
Before I could come up with a plan, the bar above the reindeer’s head turned red and started to blink. I had maybe 10 more seconds before Rudolph went rogue on me.
I reached into my bag, tossed another carrot out in front of him –
And then I immediately knew what to do.
As the reindeer chomped down on the carrot and the bar above its head went back to green, I reached in my bag and handed Stig my last two remaining carrots. “When I tell you to jump, JUMP – and then I want you to run out across the harness, get to the first two reindeer, and feed those carrots to them. They’ll do whatever you want after that. Use their antlers to steer them away from the town, over the chasm – got it?”
“What’re you gonna do, boss?”
I smiled grimly. “I’m gonna provide the distraction.”
14
I pulled the reindeer into a climb and prepared to attack.
As I did, I watched in despair as Sinter tossed another bomb down into the village. The black bowling ball plummeted down, the red light flickering on top of it – and then hit a snowy rooftop.
WHOMP!
Snow rose up in a plume all around it.
The bowling ball began to roll down the roof – but before it could fall off, the spiderlike legs dug in to the shingles. Once it stopped sliding, it scampered across the roof, climbed up the chimney, and scuttled down the hole.
Three seconds later, all the windows in the house exploded outwards in plumes of fire.
“HAHAHAHAHA!” Sinter roared from his sleigh as the crowds in the streets screamed in terror.
Me? I seethed in rage.
“Get ready, Stig!” I yelled.
“Ready, boss!”
We were a good 200 feet above Sinter in the sky, and almost 400 feet away.
I put the reindeer on a direct path with the sleigh and sent us into a dive.
The only question was, would he see us too early and ruin the plan?
No – he was busy getting another bomb out of his black velvet bag and laughing at the chaos in the streets.
The reindeer hitched to the sleigh all looked up in surprise as we came shooting down over their heads – but they didn’t deviate from their course.
“JUMP, STIG!” I yelled.
Sinter heard me and turned to see a reindeer barreling right towards him.
Swear to God, his ping-pong eyes bugged out even bigger.
Stig jumped off my back and landed on the sleigh team’s harness –
Right before my reindeer slammed into Sinter Klaws.
WHAM!
I went tumbling over the deer’s antlers, across the front seat, and slammed into Baby Zeebus’s cage.
“Wheeeeee!” he exclaimed.
I wound up lying by the bag of bombs with 25% of my Health gone.
But it was worth it for what the reindeer did to Sinter Klaus.
I was kind of hoping that it would impale him on its antlers. It didn’t, but what it did do ran a close second.
It basically freaked the fuck out as it lay on its side and kicked Hobo Santa over and over and over.
Sinter screamed as a flurry of negative hit points appeared, showing the beating he was taking:
-500
-650
-700
The bastard still had over 40,000 left, but it was fun to see him get punched 20 times with the reindeer’s razor-sharp hooves.
As I’ve said before, there wasn’t any gore in the videogame, which was probably for the best – otherwise it would have been Silent Night, Bloody Night in 3D.
Sinter roared in anger and managed to grab one of the reindeer’s legs. In a display of overwhelming brute strength, he slung the deer out of the sleigh, and it went somersaulting out into the night sky.
“Wheeeee!” Baby Zeebus giggled, and did a somersault of his own.
“FOOL!” Sinter raged as he turned to me. “JUST FOR THAT, I WILL ANNHILATE ALL OF VORTZPLASSE AT ONCE!”
“Too late!” I yelled.
“…WHAT?” He glanced over the edge of the sleigh, then bellowed in shock. “NOOO!”
There were no more rooftops and cobblestone streets below us anymore – only a thousand-foot drop into darkness.
Stig had done his job. He was down at the front of the harnessed team, holding onto one of the lead reindeer’s antlers. I could even see the two green bars above the animals’ heads.
In the last ten seconds, we had left Vortzplasse far behind, and were now sailing over the chasm between mountains.
Sinter turned around and tried to regain control of his team.
“Not today!” I yelled, and hit him with Soul Suck.
Blue lightning blasted out of my hands into his back.
Sinter screamed and arched in agony, then turned around to kill me.
We fought savagely for the next 30 seconds. The bastard got in some rough punches, each one shaving off 5% of my hit points – but I kept slamming him with Soul Suck, which drained him of Health and replenished mine. Overall, I was slowly getting beat down – but he was dropping even quicker because he couldn’t heal nearly as fast as I could.
Unfortunately, he had a lot of hit points.
Every so often he would turn around and try to regain control of the reindeer, but I would smack him with another one of my spells.
He wasn’t stupid, though. Once he was down to 50% Health, he could see where this was going.
So he decided to go for the nuclear option.
“FOOL!” he snarled. “YOU MAY HAVE THWARTED MY DESTRUCTION OF THE VILLAGE – BUT I SHALL HAVE MY ULTIMATE REVENGE!”
With that, he grabbed Baby Zeebus’s cage and lifted it into the air.
“Wheeeee!” giggled the golden baby.
“NO!” I screamed.
There was nothing I could do. Even if I could somehow kill him at this second – which was impossible – he would drop the cage as he died. And I sure as hell couldn’t wrest a 500-pound cage away from him.
And then things got worse.
Stig started shouting, “Chill, bitch! Somebody tell that bitch to chill!”
But he wasn’t yelling it at Sinter.
He was yelling it at the reindeer as he tugged at their antlers.
I immediately saw why: the bars above their heads were red and almost depleted –
And then they completely disappeared.
“Boss,” Stig cried out, “I can’t steer ‘em anymore!”
To prove his point, the reindeer began to circle around and head right back towards Vortzplasse.
We were still a long way away – but we would be back over the village within 60 seconds.
And I was out of carrots.
SHIT.
“HAHAHAHA!” Sinter chortled. “YOU HAVE FAILED, WARLOCK! THE BABY SHALL DIE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS GORGE, AND THE HOPE THAT HE BROUGHT THE WORLD WILL DIE WITH – HUH?”
The cage jerked up into the air, nearly tearing itself out of Sinter’s grasp.
At first I thought that Little Baby Zeebus was a badass mofo and was pushing the cage up himself –
But then I heard the flap of wings and saw a beautiful, red-skinned woman holding onto the top of the cage.
Alaria had showed up just in the nick of time.
“NOOOOOOO!” Sinter roared as he strained to hold onto the cage.
“Ian, he’s too strong!” Alaria yelled at me as she and Hobo Santa Claus played tug of war.
“STIG, JUMP ON THE CAGE!” I screamed.
My imp sped across the reindeer harness, launched himself into the air, and grabbed onto the
side of the cage.
That’s when I blasted Sinter with Soul Suck right in the face.
He screamed in pain –
And let go of the cage.
“Wheeeee!” Baby Zeebus giggled.
Alaria managed to keep the cage airborne with rapid flaps of her wings, but just barely.
Didn’t matter. The sleigh had already pulled past her – and now Baby Zeebus was out of Sinter’s reach.
“IAN!” Alaria screamed as Sinter and I sped away. “I’ll try to fly to you – ”
“No! Get the baby back to solid ground! Stig, while she’s doing that, see if you can open the cage and let him out!”
“Okay, boss!”
“IAN!” Alaria screamed again, real terror on her face.
At first I thought she was concerned for my safety, but then I looked around.
Sinter had armed one of his spider bombs and was about to throw it at her.
Shit!
Without thinking, I jumped up onto the back seat of the sleigh and leapt up.
I used to play basketball as a kid. I sucked at it. No coordination whatsoever. Terrible aim.
But since I was relatively tall and lanky, there was one thing I was good at:
Blocking other kids’ shots.
As soon as Sinter tossed the bomb, I SMACKED it midair and sent it hurtling backwards into the abyss, where it exploded harmlessly 500 feet below us.
“NOT IN MY HOUSE, BITCH!” I yelled.
Proudest basketball moment of my life.
Of course, now I was really close to Sinter.
That’s when he punched me in the face and sent me sprawling back onto the seat.
“OW!” I roared.
I was pretty goddamn sure he’d broken my nose.
Not only did I lose 15% of my hit points, but a computer window appeared:
You have been stunned for 10 seconds!
NO, GODDAMMIT!
I lay there sprawled on the seat, unable to move.
Even worse, we were maybe 30 seconds away from the village.
“FOOL!” Sinter cackled. “I WOULD THROW YOU OFF THIS SLEIGH – BUT I WANT YOU TO WITNESS YOUR COMPLETE AND UTTER FAILURE AS I DESTROY THE VILLAGE!”
It wasn’t exactly ‘complete and utter’ failure – after all, I could see Alaria straining to stay airborne with the cage in her grasp, as Stig tried to free Baby Zeebus – but I wasn’t about to point that out to the big ugly Hobo Santa. That would be suicide.
…suicide…
