by ilo man
“The granite city of Roarforst,” Atrixa whispered, reverently.
The cart slowed farther.
It stopped.
The wheels creaked, and they rolled back a little. Gorbon cursed and muttered something about Sorrell being too heavy. Gorbon turned. “Who’s nearest the door?” he barked.
Atrixa looked, she pursed her lips. “Me,” she said, the word barely dribbling out.
“Nip out an’ gis a push.”
Atrixa took the tiny, metal latch off and pushed the door open. She eased her leg out and then pulled it back in, gasping. “I’m not so good with heights,” she whispered to Vinnie, her blue eyes pleading.
Vinnie sighed. How could he resist? He stood up, sidling past her. She slid across the other side, trying to put as much distance between her and the open door as possible. Vinnie peered out.
“Fook me,” he said and whistled.
As he was about back out, Gorbon turned. “You doin’ it, Vinnie? Doesn’t surprise me, a man of your courage and all.”
“Indeed,” he growled under his breath, gritting his teeth.
The rock ledge by the cart’s side was no more than a foot wide, the plunge down best described as bottomless. Vinnie turned, both hands on the cart, and fished with his foot for the solid rock. One foot planted, two feet planted, and he began edging his way along the cart’s side.
“If yea fall,” Borbon told Vinnie as he drew level with the hairy dwarf, “be a good man an’ don’t drag us with you.”
Vinnie realized he was sweating, profusely. He edged along farther, then swung himself onto the middle of the bridge just behind the cart. Taking a moment, he wasn’t overly impressed with the size, nor the state of repair, of the dwarven bridge. Had it been a building, it would have been classed as derelict. Cracks riddled it, vast chunks bitten out of it by some unknown beast.
“Bitten,” he muttered to himself and started pushing urgently.
The cart creaked. The cart groaned. The wheels turned forward but then rolled back. Vinnie’s feeble strength just didn’t cut it. Then he had a thought and called for the sole strength potion he had, gulping it down in one. He shoved the cart. It lurched forward, picking up speed.
“Oh shit,” Vinnie said.
“Oh shit!” Vinnie screamed, and he started running after it as it picked up speed once more.
He saw Atrixa fighting her way to the back of the cart. Her wide eyes stared out. She held his staff out, its light glowing atop, and she threw it to him. “We’ll find you,” she hollered, and the cart vanished through the shimmering granite wall.
The staff arced through the air. Vinnie reached out, catching it by its sturdy shaft. He brought it down, stamping one silver shod end on the stone bridge.
“Why me!” he shouted, then tried to stifle a thousand echoes as his words bounced off the ceiling and rocky walls, falling all the way down to the larval seas, if seas they were.
Those same distant walls then closed in. Vinnie heard a long, slow sound like a rusted hinge opening. He glared around like a cornered rat, scouring every crag in the ceiling above, looking along the smooth granite wall in front of him, fearing the depths below him.
The hinge groaned some more.
He bolted after the cart, running at full pelt, smashing straight into the granite wall his companions had trundled straight through. Thrown back on his butt, he screamed out in frustration, his echoes taking up his woeful call.
He heard a growl, then a slither, then another growl. “Oh bollocks,” he muttered to himself. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, the skin in between glistening with cold sweat.
He suddenly felt incredibly hot, and equally suddenly had the thought that something dreadful was watching him. Turning ever so slowly, he narrowed his eyes fearing what he might see, then dreaded what he saw.
“Oh my fucking god!” he said without abbreviating. He stood, edged backward until he was flat against the granite wall. “Atrixa! Sorrell! Gorbon! Anyone!”
Perception Check: Jormungandr. World Serpent. Immortal. NPC.
Pro Tip: Don’t ever wake Jormungandr. Jormungandr is the world serpent. It can only die when the world dies. There is no escape, at least, not until the ends of time. You’re screwed.
It had a dragon’s head, all knotted and scaled, two glistening amber horns rising from either side of its ridged forehead. Its huge nostrils billowed out two plumes of smoke that at first engulfed Vinnie but then dribbled upward to the cavern’s faraway ceiling. Bright white fangs bared, lips pulled back, Jormungandr glared at Vinnie, its crimson eyes aflame with ire.
“Who dares wake Jormungandr?” It bellowed.
“I’m sorry?” Vinnie squealed, recognizing the noise as words but not understanding them.
“Who dares wake Jormungandr?” It bellowed again.
“Sorry, don’t understand,” Vinnie whimpered, exceptionally close to getting on his knees and praying.
The beast roared, soaking Vinnie with its fiery spittle. It cocked its head.
Jormungandr has gifted you a spell, Twisted Tongues.
Twisted tongues allows you to understand any language ever spoken by any living creature in the land. You can also speak the same tongue, though your vocabulary might be limited as many a colorful word has been lost on the tides of time.
Cast once, and the spell will last a reasonable amount of time. Cast again to renew. Costs 10 mana. You’ll find the spell in your Little Book of Spells, page two.
Vinnie held his hand up. The beast roared again. More spittle soaked him. He called for his Little Book of Spells, and it appeared in his hand. He showed it to the beast and made exaggerated gestures as he flipped it open to page two. The beast rolled its eyes and settled its ginormous head on the dwarven bridge with a dangerously heavy thud.
The bridge wobbled. Vinnie’s legs nearly gave way. A huge rent opened up like a great rocky scar. He studied the spell.
“If you need to converse,
With a monster or worse.
If you want to chatter,
These words you must natter.
Thanks.”
He shrugged and said the words.
“Are you done?” the beast enquired.
“All caught up,” Vinnie replied, unsure if he was amazed by the fact the spell worked or that the world serpent was so polite. “Do you know how to get through this door?”
“Nope,” said Jormungandr, “it’s a magical dwarven door specifically designed to keep me out—to stop me from devouring the little buggers.”
“Oh. So I’d best start walking back to the surface then.” Vinnie made to step around the beast’s head.
Small puffs of smoke dribble up from Jormungandr’s nostrils. The beast rolled its eyes again. “You’ll never make it.”
“Why?” Vinnie asked, immense terror suddenly returning, his legs giving way, knees bending.
It roared, a huge great bellow. A hail of slobber cascaded over Vinnie. “Because your mine and I’m going to eat you up.”
Jormungandr’s vast head reared up, then crashed down again on the stone bridge, smashing it to smithereens and catapulting Vinnie up into the air. He tumbled over and over, somehow clinging to his staff. Vinnie’s momentum slowed as he reached the apex of his arc, he crested and then began to drop, to plunge, screaming downward straight for the distant, twisting, larval river. He fell. His life flashed before him, but as he couldn’t remember most of it, that was over in a flash.
The roiling larva filled his vision. Hot wind screamed past him. Vinnie snapped his eyes shut, not even wailing, merely waiting for his inevitable death.
“Great, just great,” moaned Little Red in his now empty mind.
Pain, like he’d never felt before, coursed through him. His groin crushed, afire with searing agony. His head snapped back, his momentum suddenly going. He screamed again, feeling hot air on his cheek, and then he opened his eyes.
He was hovering about a hundred feet above the larval river and seem
ed to be hanging out of Jormungandr’s clamped jaws. The beast’s teeth held him tight. Vinnie’s head poked through a gap in its massive jaws, but he knew his groin hadn’t faired so well. A tearing pain pulsed in his upper leg, right by his crown jewels.
Its massive head drew back, retracted, an oval tunnel replacing the larval fissure.
It drew Vinnie into its lair.
Chapter Twenty
The orange glow receded. Fortunately, the beast’s maw hadn’t trapped Vinnie’s staff and lit the rocky shaft as its rough-hewn sides sped by. Vinnie blinked once, then twice, a strangely euphoric feeling filtering through him even as he was dragged along. He began to groan.
The tunnel suddenly vanished, replaced by a round chamber fashioned from the black-speckled granite. Jormungandr spat Vinnie out, then coiled up right in the center of its little kingdom. Its eyes snapped open, following Vinnie’s progress through the air, watching as he thudded into the chamber’s wall, but as his limp body slid down the granite, the beast struck again, its mouth darting forward to snap Vinnie up, shaking loose his staff, coiling back and settling, its teeth trapping Vinnie’s neck and groin once more.
Half conscious, Vinnie wondered why he hadn’t died. It wasn’t like he was overloaded with health, after all. The World Serpent groaned, but not in a growly way, more in a contented way. Its saliva leaked through Vinnie’s cloak, at the same time, its fetid breath wafted over him. Vinnie knew he was bleeding, and again, wondered why he hadn’t died. Then slowly, he began to get a boner, and suddenly put two and two together to equal eww.
The beast’s fang had torn right through his cloak, through his pants, and had lodged right by his balls, his cock, and his ring. Now the ring was doing its bit and pleasuring the Jormungandr.
“Eww, eww, eww, eww,” cried a disgusted but very relieved Vinnie.
“Stick me in its flesh,” hissed an impatient Little Red.
Can’t hurt, Vinnie thought and called for the crystal core. It appeared in his hand, and he plunged it down into the beast’s wet tongue.
“That’s the job,” Little Red purred.
For a short while, everything calmed. Jormungandr seemed contented by the oral pleasuring Vinnie’s ring lavished on it, Little Red fed on pooling crimson, and Vinnie was happy to be still breathing, but then the beast started to groan, and not in a good way. Its tongue began to undulate, as though Little Red’s presence annoyed it. It sneezed but held its jaws clamped firmly shut. Then, a vast intake of breath whistled over Vinnie’s prone body. All stilled. Pressure gathered. Vinnie’s ears popped. The beast’s jaws burst open. It bellowed, unceremoniously ejecting him.
Flying across the granite chamber, again, a spittle-soaked Vinnie pulled his cloak up, trying desperately to grab hold of his cock. Slamming into the rock, sliding down to the rough-stone floor, Vinnie looked up, dread filling his heart. Jormungandr spat out Little Red, then struck at Vinnie like a viper. Finally, Vinnie’s hand encircled his shaft, he twisted the ring and vanished.
Jormungandr screamed in rage. Vinnie dove away, evading the beast’s snapping jaws. He scooped up Little Red, her cone dripping with iridescent monster blood, and scoured the chamber for somewhere to hide.
The beast’s lair had plenty of nooks and crannies; he backed into a narrow crack between a set of upward steps and what looked like an altar. It opened up, and Vinnie gasped. Gleaming gold, shining silver, jewels a-twinkling, all piled high, greeted him.
“Where are you, little human?” Jormungandr’s voice swept around him. “Come out, come out wherever you are.”
Vinnie’s eyes were on stalks. He’d never seen so much wealth, which for him was some statement. He bent low, picking up a chunky, gold medallion with a huge milky opal planted in its center. Its rune-etched perimeter shimmered in his hand. Vinnie immediately knew it was dwarven treasure; his new Twisted Tongues spell letting him read most of the words scribed on it.
Need to escape, Vinnie-me-boy, he told himself, but his heart had filled with greed. He brought out his Grand Sack of Holding, plucking one piece of precious treasure after the next and dropping it in, promising he’d soon stop, but failing dismally.
“With this,” Little Red whispered in his mind. “With this, we can be truly powerful.”
Sapphires, opals, ancient swords and more, Vinnie stuffed heaps of it into his sack.
“Where are you, little human?” Jormungandr growled. “Are you near my horde?”
Hot breath flooded over Vinnie, and he looked up to see the dread beast above him, rearing back, ready to strike as it watched its treasure vanish. As fast as lightning, Vinnie snapped his sack shut, stashed it into his cloak and sidled back through the gap between the altar and the steps.
“Get it all,” moaned Little Red, but fear now gripped Vinnie’s heart.
A burst of fire erupted from Jormungandr’s gaping nostrils and enveloped the sparkling pile. Vinnie dove into the center of the chamber, narrowly evading the rolling flames. He grabbed his staff and fled up the granite steps, hoping beyond all hope that they would lead him to safety. Jormungandr drew its fat neck back, rearing like a king cobra. Vinnie spied a doorway at the top of the steps, a low doorway, short, fat, dwarf-like. He redoubled his efforts. Jormungandr inhaled deeply, its fiery eyes following the glowing staff’s progress.
Vinnie pelted up the steps, now fearing his stamina wouldn’t last. He began to breathe heavily. Fire burst from Jormungandr’s nostrils, billowing out. With one, final, gargantuan lurch, Vinnie leaped for the door, shoving it with his dipped shoulder, his heart leaping in hope as it burst open.
The serpent’s fire engulfed him, but Vinnie rolled on, his cloak aflame. A great bellow roared out behind him.
“I will find you Vinnie the Weak. Yes, Jormungandr knows your name. You cannot hide from me.”
“I’ll give it a bloody good go,” Vinnie muttered as the dwarven door closed. He patted out his smoldering cloak and slumped down, letting his energy recoup. Twisting his golden ring, he reappeared.
Level 2!
Your demon has reached level 2.
As your Little Red gets stronger, so will you—at level 2 she will begin to become useful to you. She can start to influence your surroundings, though not by much. Doors that would be otherwise locked, suddenly spring open when needed. She will be able to manipulate rock, but only slightly. Your demon’s influence will now extend three feet in all directions away from her core. As you have helped your demon to level, the land rewards you with 500 XP. You now have 9800 XP and are 200 XP short of level 6. Nothing particularly exciting happens when you reach 6, but then excitement never appears to be too far away from you, does it?
“Did you unlock that door?” Vinnie asked Little Red.
“Well, it didn’t unlock itself,” she replied. “Oh Vinnie, we’re going to rule the world. As soon as I’m strong, I’m going to build you a palace where none can touch you. With all our treasure, we’ll want for nothing. Just keep quiet about it. You don’t know who you can trust.”
Vinnie took out the cone, looking at his tiny demon. She had grown, and Vinnie could easily see her lithe, red body, her scant armor, and big sexy boots. Her eyes glowered yellow under her sexy black horns, scarlet hair flowing around them.
“I know I can trust you, Little Red,” Vinnie said, falling into her enticing, yellow eyes.
“And I can trust you, my rock,” Little Red purred back. “Now get us out of here. Upwards is our friend.”
Vinnie stowed the crystal core back into his Grand Sack of Holding. He jumped up, his stamina renewed from his brief rest. A web-laden corridor led him to another set of black granite steps, its musty smell of neglect drying his nostrils, making his throat scratchy. More doors lined the way, but Vinnie wasn’t inclined to look into them, fearing what he might find behind. As his adrenaline subsided, its walls began to press in on him, only the wailing bellows of Jormungandr breaking the oppressive quiet that surrounded him. He came to the steps, letting the dwarven light illumina
te his way. The cobwebs of a thousand years of neglect draped before him like frayed curtains. He gasped a breath, steeled his courage, and took a step up.
Fighting the clinging tendrils, he counted the steps away. He stole up flights of ten, then twenty, then fifty steps, like a thief in the night—like the thief he was, only resting on tiny landings, no bigger than a few feet square with corridors leading away deep into the bowels of the earth. Tears lurked behind Vinnie’s eyes as it began to dawn on him just how lost he was.
“Up is your friend, Vinnie-me-boy,” he said to himself.
“And Little Red,” the demon whispered.
“And you,” Vinnie whispered back.
Ignoring all the side alleys, he continued up. The webs clung, the stale air made him heady, the simmering heat of the underground became unbearable. Sweat and silken strand molded together, the grime of age blackening him. When he had passed the ends of his hope, left the last reserves of his courage far below, Vinnie noticed a light shining down from above. His heart leaped, his pace quickened.
“Vinnie, is that you?” Atrixa’s distant voice rang out.
“Yes!” Vinnie cried and surged upward into a vaulted, church-like, stone hallway, clearly once an important building. He fell into her arms.
She pulled back, holding him at arm’s length.
“How on earth did you survive? We doubled back, and the bridge had fallen.”
Vinnie relayed his tale.
She stared at him, open-mouthed and blank, but as he told her about Jormungandr and his epic battle with the beast, carefully skipping over the bit about the treasure, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed. “Seriously,” she said. “Seriously? You’re going to keep lying?” Spinning around, Atrixa stormed off.
