“I wonder if there’s an exploit here with the Golden Cap,” mused Scarecrow. “You could give it to me and then I’d have three commands over the flying monkeys.”
“Oh what a good idea,” said Dorothy.
“It would break my Code,” the Tin Woman pointed out. “Despite the fact that the Winged Monkeys nearly killed me, I cannot approve of taking advantage of their servitude.” So the party continued on their journey.
The country of the Quadlings seemed rich and happy. There was field upon field of ripening grain, with well-paved roads running between, and pretty rippling brooks with strong bridges across them. The fences and houses and bridges were all painted bright red, just as they had been painted yellow in the country of the Winkies and blue in the country of the Munchkins. The Quadlings themselves, who were short and fat and looked chubby and good-natured, were dressed all in red, which showed bright against the green grass and the yellowing grain.
The Monkeys had set them down near a farmhouse, and the four travelers walked up to it and knocked at the door. It was opened by a female NPC farmer, and when Dorothy asked for something to eat the woman gave them all a good dinner, with three kinds of cake and four kinds of cookies, and a bowl of milk for Toto.
“How far is it to the Castle of Glinda?” asked the child.
“It is not a great way,” answered the farmer’s wife. “Take the road to the South and you will soon reach it.”
Thanking the good woman, they started afresh and walked by the fields and across the pretty bridges until they saw before them a very beautiful Castle. Before the gates were three young girls, dressed in handsome red uniforms trimmed with gold braid; and as Dorothy approached, one of them said to her:
“Why have you come to the South Country?”
“To see the Good Witch who rules here,” she answered. “Will you take me to her?”
“Let me have your name, and I will ask Glinda if she will receive you.” They told who they were, and the girl soldier went into the Castle. After a few moments she came back to say that Dorothy and the others were to be admitted at once.
Chapter XXIII
Glinda The Good Witch Grants Dorothy’s Wish
Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a room of the Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the Lioness shook the dust out of her coat of fur, and the Scarecrow patted himself into his best shape, and the Tin Woman polished her tin and oiled her joints.
When they were all quite presentable they followed the soldier girl into a big room where the Witch Glinda sat upon a throne of rubies.
She was both beautiful and young to their eyes. Her hair was a rich red in color and fell in flowing ringlets over her shoulders. Her dress was pure white but her eyes were blue, and they looked kindly upon the little girl.
“What can I do for you, my child?” she asked.
Dorothy told the Witch all her story: how the cyclone had brought her to the Land of Oz, how she had found her companions, and of the wonderful adventures they had met with.
“My greatest wish now,” she added, “is to get back to Kansas, for Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than they were last, I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it. But now I am a level ten sorceress, I can be a great help.”
Glinda leaned forward and kissed the sweet, upturned face of the loving little girl.
“Bless your dear heart,” she said, “I am sure I can tell you of a way to get back to Kansas.” Then she added, “But, if I do, you must give me the Golden Cap.”
“Willingly!” exclaimed Dorothy; “indeed, it is of no use to me now, and when you have it you can command the Winged Monkeys three times.”
“And I think I shall need their service just those three times,” answered Glinda, smiling.
“I am not sure this is right,” said the Tin Woman. “It’s an exploit and keeps the Flying Monkeys in perpetual servitude.”
“Allow me to explain.” The Witch turned to the Scarecrow. “What will you do when Dorothy has left us?”
“I will return to the Emerald City,” he replied, “for Oz has made me its ruler and the people like me. The only thing that worries me is how to cross the hill of the Hammer-Heads.”
“By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the Winged Monkeys to carry you to the gates of the Emerald City,” said Glinda, “for it would be a shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler.”
“Am I really wonderful?” asked the Scarecrow.
“You are unusual,” replied Glinda.
Turning to the Tin Woman, she asked, “What will become of you when Dorothy leaves this country?”
She leaned on her axe and thought a moment. Then she said, “Now that I am a Paladin once more and am filled with the joy of serving goodness, I find myself full of love for the young man whom I once abandoned. I shall return to him and if he will still have me, I will marry him. If not, I shall be sad but determined to make further amends by following the Code.
“Either way, I shall then rule over the Winkies and show them that a Lawful Good ruler makes for a far happier realm than a Chaotic Evil one.”
“My second command to the Winged Monkeys,” said Glinda “will be that they carry you safely to the youth you speak of and then to the land of the Winkies: alone or with him. Your brain may not be so large to look at as that of the Scarecrow, but you are really brighter than he is—when you are well polished—and I am sure you will rule the Winkies wisely and well.”
Then the Witch looked at the big, shaggy Lioness and asked, “When Dorothy has returned to her own home, what will become of you?”
“Over the hill of the Hammer-Heads,” she answered, “lies a grand old forest, and all the beasts that live there have made me their Queen. If I could only get back to this forest, I would pass my life very happily there.”
“My third command to the Winged Monkeys,” said Glinda, “shall be to carry you to your forest. Then, having used up the powers of the Golden Cap, I shall give it to the King of the Monkeys, that he and his band may thereafter be free for evermore. Is that acceptable to your Code, Tin Woman?”
“If the King of the Monkeys comes and you explain this plan and he agrees, then all will be good.”
The Scarecrow and the Lioness now thanked the Good Witch earnestly for her kindness; and Dorothy exclaimed:
“You are certainly as good as you are beautiful! But you have not yet told me how to get back to Kansas.”
“Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert,” replied Glinda. “If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country.”
“But then I should not have had my wonderful eleven Intelligence!” cried the Scarecrow. “I might have passed my whole life in the farmer’s cornfield.”
“And I should not have had my Paladin class restored,” said the Tin Woman. “And I might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world.”
“And I should have lived without Rage forever,” declared the Lioness, “and no beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me.”
“This is all true,” said Dorothy, “and I am glad I was of use to these good friends. But now that each of them has had what he or she most desired, and each is happy in having a kingdom to rule besides, I think I should like to go back to Kansas.”
“The Silver Shoes,” said the Good Witch, “have wonderful powers. And one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go.”
“If that is so,” said the child joyfully, “I will ask them to carry me back to Kansas at once.”
Dorothy threw her arms around the Lioness’s neck and kissed her, patting her big head tenderly. T
hen she kissed the Tin Woman, who was weeping in a way most dangerous to her joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed body of the Scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face, and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her loving comrades.
Glinda the Good stepped down from her ruby throne to give the little girl a good-bye kiss, and Dorothy thanked her for all the kindness she had shown to her friends and herself.
Dorothy now took Toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times, saying:
“Take me home to Aunt Em!”
Instantly she was whirling through the air, so swiftly that all she could see or feel was the wind whistling past her ears.
The Silver Shoes took but three steps, and then she stopped so suddenly that she rolled over upon the grass several times before she knew where she was.
At length, however, she sat up and looked about her.
“Good gracious!” she cried.
For she was sitting on the broad Kansas prairie, and just before her was the new farmhouse Uncle Henry built after the cyclone had carried away the old one. Uncle Henry was milking the cows in the barnyard, and Toto had jumped out of her arms and was running toward the barn, barking furiously.
Chapter XXIV
Home Again
Aunt Em had just come out of the house to water the cabbages when she looked up and saw Dorothy running toward her.
“My darling child!” she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and covering her face with kisses. “Where in the world did you come from?”
“From the Land of Oz,” said Dorothy gravely. “And here is Toto, too. And oh, Aunt Em! I’m so glad to be at home again!”
Uncle Henry came forward, with a happy expression that Dorothy had never seen before.
“My dear; we thought you lost to the cyclone. Yet here you are, looking so well.” He paused, looking at her with astonishment. “My, you are level ten!”
Dorothy laughed. “So I am, and dear Toto is level six.”
With great pleasure, she took a long look at the character sheet on her UI. She had come a long way from the little girl with only one level in Sorceress:
Dorothy, level 10 Sorceress
HP 55 Mana 124
AC: 2 (clothes 0, +2 bracelet)
Str 7
Int 17
Wis 11
Con 7
Dex 7
Cha 13
Spell gem slots:
5 level 1 Spells
4 level 2 Spells
3 level 3 Spells
3 level 4 Spells
2 level 5 Spells
Silver Shoes of Proicio
About the Author
Oisin Muldowney is a software engineer living in Galway, Ireland.
He’d be happy to hear from readers, please email: [email protected], or message him on Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/user/OisinM
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The Wonderful LitRPG Wizard of Oz (LitRPG Classics Book 1) Page 14
