by JK Galioto
Jack took another hit from the beast while his attention was diverted, the spikes on one of the tentacles ripping long gashes across his back. He had another vision of his parents lying bloody on the asphalt of Highway 51, staring at him with lifeless eyes.
“Jack! Do something!” Gooch shouted, his typical bass voice rising an octave as desperation set in, jarring Jack out of his momentary flashback.
An idea struck Jack like a bolt of lightning on a cloudless day, jolting him into action. He might die as a result of this, but hopefully Gooch would live. “Hit it with a Shield Bash!” he frantically sent to Gooch, while dodging an attack from another tentacle. Glancing at his health, he grimaced as he noticed he had only nine hit points remaining. Go big or go home. A wild grin only worn by fools and idiots danced on his face.
Gooch roared at Moandir and slammed it with his shield, stunning the creature. Moandir’s tentacles flopped to the ground, its mouth dropping open as it dealt with the stun effect. Uttering a high pitch cackle, Jack whispered a wordless goodbye to Gooch, certain this would be the last time he saw his friend. He turned, ran a few steps, and dived headfirst into Moandir’s horrific maw, relying on his acrobatics skill and luck stat as he soared into the opening, narrowly avoiding the daggerlike teeth. He landed in a small roll, nearly throwing up a little in his mouth at the overpowering smell of rotting garbage and bile that permeated the space within the creature’s large stomach.
He heard and felt erupting flame and knew Gooch had insta-cast another Burning Hands. The creature regained its senses and sent a probing tentacle flying inside its mouth to get at Jack, as if he were a piece of halfling stuck between his teeth. His danger sense, which was working overtime, alerted him to the incoming attack. He leapt high, tucking his knees under his chin as the tentacle sailed under him, the large spikes embedding themselves into the stomach lining. Moandir shrieked in pain. After a couple of sword strikes, Jack had cut open the stomach lining and began hacking at the hide, careful to keep an eye on the deadly limb, which appeared to be stuck in meaty flesh for now. “Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!” he screamed with a sadistic smile, as he continued his attempts to bring the beast down from the inside.
“How you doin’ in there, Jacky?” Gooch asked telepathically, on offense now since the focus of the creature had shifted inward.
“If you thought the Merrill Motel was gross, you should get a load of this place. I’m working on a small remodeling project, be out soon,” Jack replied, trying to keep things light. He didn’t need Gooch losing focus, so hid his desperation behind jokes, hoping the loyal man wouldn’t change tactics in an attempt to rescue him. He wasn’t sure how soon this “project” would be finished, if at all; he now realized the hide was just as thick from the inside as the outside, and besides, he had seen enough home improvement shows to know fixer-uppers like this ran the risk of going over budget and longer than scheduled. He barely saw the tentacle work itself out of the hide and dart toward him. What the . . .? He almost dodged the attack but slipped on some undigested nasty and received a glancing blow on his left thigh as he fell hard onto his back. The smell was much more intense near its pooled-up source in the bottom of the stomach, and he was unable to stop himself from retching up his breakfast and lunch, the sloshy gelatinous putrescence adding to the overall grossness of the situation. Well, that was one way to lose weight.
The tentacle loomed ominously over him again, seeming to pause in anticipation, although that could have been his imagination. It slammed down, and he rolled quickly to his left, narrowly avoiding another deadly attack as it slammed into the stomach lining instead of the place where his head had been moments ago. Jack saw his opening and acted without hesitation. The creature roared again in pain as it felt the spikes slam into itself for the second time. Jack immediately began working his shortsword and dagger in sawing motions until he had cut most of the way through the tentacle.
Moandir, not realizing its tentacle was nearly severed, continued its struggle to pull the spikes out of its mouth, but succeeded only in ripping the tentacle in two, leaving the spiky pad stuck to its stomach floor and the tentacle wildly flailing about, blood spraying everywhere.
“One down, one to go,” Jack sent to Gooch before readying his next attack.
“Sounds good, but you better hurry. I am start—” Then the communication link he shared with Gooch was gone.
“Gooch!” Jack screamed, beginning to hack and slash at the insides of the giant beast in earnest, rage and desperation allowing him to tap into reserves he didn’t know he still had. He was starting to make some headway into the impossibly thick hide when a shield held by the remaining tentacle swung through the mouth and bashed straight at him. His danger sense gave him a slight advantage against the attack, and he was able to roll with the hit from the shield, turning a hit that would have ended him into a glancing blow. Rolling back to his feet inside the giant mouth, he realized that the shield belonged to Gooch.
“No, you tentacled freak! Not like this!” Jack shouted, tears streaming down his face. Giving up on his hack and slash on the inside hide, he used the last of his flagging stamina to execute a dual attack, plunging his shortsword and dagger straight up into the beast’s head. Moandir began convulsing erratically, tumbling Jack to the ground inside its belly; and then it was still, having time to only utter a single final parting word for Jack’s ears: “Why. . . ?”
Chapter 42
Just one time, I would like to finish a battle and not nearly die. Jack sheathed his blades and started to wipe the gore, bile, and general yuckiness from his previously semi-clean armor, which given that the stuff covered him literally from head to toe, was a futile gesture. As he blew a big piece of bone out of his left nostril, he vowed he would find a cleaning spell of some kind. Wait, he thought quickly to Alexa, not vow, not vow! He glanced nervously back and forth for a moment, fully expecting a prompt of some sort. Ha! No new quest! He would strive to find a cleaning spell of some kind. He also resolved to look into why monsters always asked “why?” right before dying, but for now, that was the least of his concerns.
“You okay buddy?” he asked, circling around the large beast to find his friend lying down on his back, panting for breath.
“Yeah, I’m good,” came an exhausted reply. “I mean, as good as a guy covered in blood and entrails with dozens of lacerations throughout his body can be.”
Jack went over and sat next to him, tossing him a Minor Heal before getting out his guitar and letting his fingers tiredly caress the strings, channeling a Soothing Performance to kickstart the work of healing their many cuts and gashes.
“We’re gonna need ten tetanus shots, minimum, and I think I contracted syphilis—don’t ask me how I know that, I just do,” Gooch said tiredly, eyes closed as he let his muscles relax. “And a masseuse or three wouldn’t hurt either.”
“I hear ya, buddy. But we did good back there, yeah?” Jack asked, continuing to pluck mindlessly at the strings. “If somebody told us a week ago that we’d be fighting large, trash-eating, tentacle-waving, inflatable car-dealership tube-men, I would have told them they were crazy. Charlie Sheen tiger blood crazy! But here we are, with the fate of Earth depending on two guys from a Podunk, middle-of-nowhere town.”
“Yeah, it’s wildly unbelievable when you think of it. Why did you pick me to be your first?” Gooch asked. Hearing what he said, he quickly corrected, “Your first through the portal I mean.”
Biting off a sarcastic quip, Jack took a second to think about it. “I’m not really sure. I just felt so alone, and I couldn’t think of anyone I would rather have at my side in this quest to save Earth, as much for your friendship as for your ability to take a hit. My sweet Gooch, I was so afraid you wouldn’t make it, especially when you stopped breathing. That would have ended me.”
“I wouldn’t let you go alone, Jacky, not even if I had to march through the gates of Mordor itself!” Gooch promised, sitting up and giving Jack a long look
before placing his large, meaty hand on Jack’s shoulder.
Jack, red creeping into his cheeks, had never been great with feelings, and after a long pregnant pause, he tried to lighten the mood. “Now, let me ask you a question. What’s up with you and that adorable little halfling Maebh?”
It was Gooch’s turn to blush. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you give me that ‘what do you mean,’ mister! I saw the way you were acting around her. You kissed her freaking hand! Who does that? Honestly!”
“I was just trying to be friendly to the natives. You keep yammering away about how we need to make friends and allies, just doing my part,” Gooch responded sincerely, although the blush in his cheeks betrayed him.
“Sure you are,” Jack laughed, standing up and giving himself a Minor Heal, using the last of his spell points but feeling better for it.
“As much as I would love to continue this line of questioning, we need to get a move on. Usually I enjoy looting, but the pearl is somewhere in one of those giant piles of garbage. And there could be other things from past unfortunates, depending on how much we want to punish ourselves.”
“Honestly, Jacky,” Gooch responded, “I don’t think you can smell any worse than you do right now. I mean, it’s worse than that time in tenth grade when the sewage backed up onto the football field. We couldn’t practice there for a week, and that’s about how long you’ll need to bathe to get that stench out.”
“I guess we get to it then,” Jack retorted, starting to head toward the largest garbage pile.
“I think we should wait until we heal up. Let’s not tempt fate by walking into a large garbage dump with open cuts, eh Jacky?”
They waited nearly an hour for Jack’s spell points to replenish enough to fully heal them before beginning their grisly work. Taking the lodestone out, it started to swing back and forth, alternating between two particularly nasty piles of trash near the center.
“Either there are two pearls, or this thing is broken. How about we each take a pile? Last one to find a pearl cleans the other’s armor?” Jack suggested, hoping his perception skill wouldn’t fail him.
Gooch gave a nod, put a smile on his face, and said, “Pleasant spelunking to you, my good man!” before wading into the nearest pile. Jack, not to be outdone, gave a tip of his imaginary hat to Gooch and dove into the larger trash pile.
Chapter 43
They searched the piles of trash, refuse, and other unmentionables for hours, attempting to use the lodestone to point the way, but while so close to the source, it seemed to be going a little wonky. Jack found his pearl first. It was in a pouch that looked to at one time have been the color of tanned hide, but now was closer to a sewage brown. Opening the small bag, he discovered rough-cut gems, primarily amethysts and rubies, along with the pearl. Placing the pouch on a clean—well, less disgusting—space on the floor with the other items, he willed himself over to Gooch’s pile and assisted. After another hour of digging, they finally located the other pearl, hidden cleverly inside a metallic locket on a silver chain. Jack then used his gathering creatures skill and went to town on Moandir, harvesting anything that looked like it could be rare. Inside the creature’s stomach, he found a few more gems that hadn’t yet been corroded by the stomach acid.
Deciding enough time had been spent in the garbage for one day, they walked over to their pile of goodies, ready for Jack to Analyze them. For the amount of garbage sorted, the pile was not impressive. They found a standard-quality iron longsword, which Gooch immediately swapped for his poor-quality bronze longsword. They also recovered a standard-quality iron mace in addition to dozens of coins of all denominations. Gooch tried to put the mace in his adventuring backpack, but found that he was out of inventory spots, so he tucked it through his belt. Finally, there were a number of standard and poor-quality sets of armor, although most would need serious repair if they were going to be used again. Since Jack’s backpack was also full, they decided to leave all the poor-quality armor and just take the three standard sets, which consisted of ring, chain, and scale. They would sort out their backpacks when they got back to their makeshift camp.
In addition to the armor, there were three unique items of interest. The first, a dark blue cloak, sported a golden rope used to fasten it in place. The inner lining featured a plush material of the same golden hue as the rope, and an intricate wind symbol was embroidered on the left inside pocket.
Name: Fine Cloak of Billowing. Durability 30/45. Effect: When worn, this cloak billows behind the wearer as if blown by a strong wind. This effect can be toggled on or off by the wearer with a mental command.
The next item looked like a wand made of a white wood. Or it was just a stick. Time to find out. Jack cast Analyze.
Name: Superior Wand. Durability: Unknown. Effect: Unknown. Your Analyze spell is not high enough to identify this item.
Another thing his Analyze spell couldn’t identify. He slipped the soft, polished wood into the inside of his leather tunic and moved on to the final item, which was a wooden statue of a rat slightly larger than a matchbox car Jack had played with growing up. He cast Analyze one final time.
Name: Fine Rat Figurine. Durability: 20/20. Effect: Once you name your rat, you can call to it, and it will appear. The rat will remain with you for 4 hours a day before it must return to its own plane. Although the rat cannot speak, it is intelligent and can understand and execute commands.
Jack told Gooch about the three items; needless to say, he was not impressed.
“You’re telling me we found a wand we can’t use, a cloak that billows like it’s under a constant stream of farts, and a summonable rat? I mean, Drizzt got a huge panther, and we get a rat?”
Jack moved beyond the disappointment and tried to think of rat names. “Ratniss Everdeen? Ratman? Wait, I got it! Rat Damon!” He immediately began calling to the statue, petting it. “Come to us, Rat Damon. Use your mathematical prowess to bend time and space and join us in the world of Rigara! The power of Jack compels you!” Soon, the statue dissipated into a fine, grey mist, and in its place stood a small, adorable rat. It had huge brown eyes and soft light brown and white fur.
“Here’s a good boy,” Jack said, gently petting the rat. “Look,” he added, turning his attention back to Gooch, “as Grandpa used to say, it’s better than a kick to the crotch. Let’s pack up and get out of here. You might as well take the cloak, the color suits you and you’ll make for a heroic figure when we return to the pit.” Gooch started to wave his hand, clearly dismissing the idea, but after a moment, shrugged and put the cloak on, fastening it around his chest with the golden rope. It immediately began billowing out behind him. Gooch hoisted one leg atop an old wooden barrel, channeling the spirit of Captain Morgan in a heroic pose. Jack had to admit it was a striking sight—or it would’ve been if Gooch wasn’t covered in multiple unidentifiable layers of garbage, blood, and gore.
Chapter 44
They gathered their gear, hauling the armor the old-fashioned way back to where they’d left the halflings. Jack also unsummoned Rat Damon, not wanting to waste the small mammal’s time and honestly, not completely sure what to think about his new rodent companion. Jack reviewed his notifications as he started to sweat again, the exertion of hauling more weight than usual beginning to take its toll.
You have gained 3 points in Analyze. You have gained 2 points in small blades, parry, acrobatics, and perception, and 1 point in open locks, dodge, light armor, and stealth.
You have attained beginner rank in the Analyze spell. Your cooldown is reduced to 9 seconds, and there is an increased chance to identify more powerful items and creatures. You may choose one of the following perks:
Creature Scan 1: Your Analyze spell has a 20% chance to identify a creature’s defensive or offensive ability. Further ranks in this perk will increase the likelihood of this occurring.
Quick Cast 1: The casting time of this spell is reduced by 1 second, to 1 second. An additional rank in this perk will
allow you to instantaneously cast this spell, although its cooldown still applies.
Object Scan 1: You are 20% more likely to find additional information about an item or object, such as when it was made and who made it. Further ranks in this perk will increase the likelihood of this occurring.
Jack could see the benefits of all three but chose Creature Scan 1, assuming casting time would be less of an issue if he could Analyze creatures from a position of stealth. He moved on to his next notification after trying his newly ranked-up Analyze spell on the ring and the wand, but no luck.
You have attained beginner rank in the acrobatics skill. You have an increased chance to maintain balance on narrow or slippery surfaces and may choose one of the following perks:
Free Fall 1: You take 20% less damage from a fall by executing an acrobatic roll. Further ranks in this skill will decrease the damage received.
Parkour 1: You are able to traverse obstacles through the use of running, vaulting, jumping, rolling, and other movements in order to travel from one point to another in the quickest and most efficient way possible. Further ranks will continue to increase this perk.
Stand Up: You can use your acrobatics skill to stand up quickly from a prone position. This perk uses 6 stamina.
Jack chose the perk without a second thought as he screamed parkour! in his mind, picturing himself flying across the tops of trees like in every Eastern martial arts movie he’d ever seen. That probably required grandmaster rank, but hey, you miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take, right? He looked at his final notification.
You have a pervasive odor about you that repels everything. Your charisma has a penalty of -10 until you can remove the smell. You have the chance to wilt small flowers.
