by Robert Bevan
“Sure thing,” said Randy, stepping up to peer into the jar. “What is it?”
“Stirge wings.”
“The fuck is a stirge?” asked Denise.
“Nasty little critters,” said Grimmond. “They'll swarm you, latch onto your skin, and suck every drop of blood out of your body. But their wings are delicious when pickled with sugar, tomato juice, and lionpepper extract. Brother Mayfair adores them.” He slapped his cleaver hand down on the bar. “That reminds me. He'll want a jug of Dark Iron Brew to wash them down.”
Denise groaned. “Who wouldn't?” When Grimmond went into the back to fetch Brother Mayfair's jug of beer, she said to Randy, “We shouldn't have to pay for this. First, he feeds me his own wife's taco sauce, and now he treats us like his personal goddamn couriers. I say we just tell him to jerk off left-handed and get the fuck out of this place.”
“Taco sauce?” said Katherine. “Really?”
“I think we might be able to use this to our favor,” said Randy. “We're like to be better received at the temple if we come bearing gifts, even if they ain't necessarily from us.”
Denise snorted. “Yeah, right. Ain't nothin' butters a guy up like giving him a big ol' jug of cooch hooch.”
Katherine grimaced. “Got any more while you're at it?”
Denise bit her lower lip in thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Vajamba Juice? Bloodweiser?”
“Jesus Christ,” said Katherine. “Are you instinctively this vile? Or do you have, like, a whole list of these you've been waiting for this specific occasion to use?”
“Pabst Red Ribbon? Anheus Her Bush?”
“SHUT UP!”
“Is everyone okay?” asked Grimmond as he returned with a corked gallon jug.
“Everyone's just fine,” said Randy. “And we would be delighted to take these gifts to Brother Mayfair.”
Chapter 9
Captain Righteous led the way up the corridor leading to the rest of the Crescent Shadow. Bingam followed close behind him. Julian and Stacy hung back a little further, but not too far because Julian was carrying a pebble he'd enchanted with a Light spell so that they could all see. Dave took the rear position, not for any strategic advantage, but rather because he was the slowest. He struggled to keep up with the rest of the group. He could see just fine in the dark, but he still felt safer in the sphere of light than outside of it.
“What do you suppose happened to that little old guy who rescued us?” asked Stacy.
“The wizards here have a reputation for being distrustful of outsiders,” said the captain. “He likely couldn't bring himself to leave us there to die, but had no interest in interacting with us beyond that.”
The corridor ended in a spiral stone staircase, which Dave remembered from having walked down it a few days ago. If memory continued to serve, there would be a door at the top of the stairs, on the other side of which would be the dusty old basement of some long-condemned building. When he and Chaz were told they were being led to Tim, it seemed plausible that he might be hiding down here. Coming the other way, Dave reasoned the cages and observation platform were probably relics from a different time, and the values of the Crescent Shadow wizards had since changed. No longer did they find it acceptable or entertaining to watch a prisoner struggle with the choice between jumping to their death or dying of thirst. If Captain Righteous was to be believed, this had less to do with ethics than patience. Nowadays, they probably preferred to just throw prisoners off the edge and be done with it.
The basement was as dusty as Dave remembered it. Captain Righteous headed for the stairs leading up to the ground floor, but stopped when he stepped beyond Julian's light. Something had caught Julian's attention.
“What are you looking at, elf?” said the Captain. “The more time we waste, the lower our chances of catching this Mordred character.”
Julian leaned over a small wooden desk which was conspicuously not covered in dust. A large red leather-bound book lay open on top of it, along with a jar of black ink, a quill pen, and a small stack of papers. The paper on top was half covered in strange writing in a language Dave couldn't understand.
“These are spell scrolls,” Julian whispered, flipping through the papers. “Read Magic.” His eyes glowed with a faint green light as he studied the words on the paper. “This one's a Magic Missile. Or at least it will be once it's finished. The form is a little sloppy, probably written by a first or second level wizard. But it should be functional.”
“So where is he now?” asked Stacy.
“Probably taking a break. Scribing spells is really dull and mentally exhausting work.”
“He's obviously been sent here to guard us,” said Captain Righteous. “This place is too remote to serve as a likely place for a wizard to scribe scrolls, and the Crescent Shadow is no place for inexperienced wizards of first or second level, as you say. We can use this to our advantage.”
Dave didn't like where this was going. He didn't trust Julian's assessment of another spellcaster's work enough to risk fucking with a magic user, especially while they were all on a floating island of magic users known for tossing people off the edge.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked, fearing he already knew the answer.
Stacy smiled. “When he comes back down here, we'll jump him and see what he knows.”
Captain Righteous nodded. “Our thoughts are aligned.”
Before Dave could think of a reasonable argument, the floor above them creaked.
“Elf!” whispered Captain Righteous. “Hide your stone.”
They all backed under the staircase in near pitch black darkness. A small fart squeaked out.
“Ew!” whispered Bingam. “Which one of you did that?” He'd apparently forgotten that dwarves have Darkvision. Even as dark as it was, Dave could clearly see him fanning behind his own ass.
“Shhh!” said Captain Righteous.
When the door at the top of the stairs opened, Dave was surprised that no light flowed in with it. The footsteps on the old wooden stairs sounded heavy and not particularly careful, which probably meant that the person coming down also had Darkvision. Dave hoped the others had come to similar conclusions, because he couldn't communicate his thoughts to them without giving away their presence.
Captain Righteous and Stacy stood ready to pounce. Julian had his hands cupped tightly around his Light stone. Bingam was picking his nose.
A dark-bearded dwarf in a grey robe rounded the banister. He had a roasted turkey leg in one hand and a live toad in the other. He froze when his eyes met Dave's.
“Shit,” said Dave.
“Now!” cried Captain Righteous.
Julian opened his hands, illuminating the room.
“Luminus Obscurum!” said the dwarf through a mouthful of turkey. He tossed his toad at Julian, who reeled back right before Dave went suddenly and completely blind.
“What happened?” said Stacy.
“I can't see anything!” cried Bingam.
“He threw a toad at me,” said Julian. “Who does that?”
“Don't let him escape!” said Captain Righteous. “He's around here somewhere. Is this – Oomph!”
“That was me,” said Stacy. “Sorry about your face. It was just an instinct. I don't like being grabbed.”
Dave heard something skittering up the stairs in a very un-dwarflike manner. He pawed around on the floor until his left hand found something. His heart raced as he felt the still warm scorched flesh around the bone. He nearly wept with joy as he bit into the most delicious turkey meat he'd ever tasted.
His vision came back as suddenly as it had gone.
Julian stood with his bag in one hand. His serape was missing.
“He's a higher level wizard than I thought,” he admitted. “Darkness is a Level 2 spell. It requires the caster to touch the item to be enchanted. He used his familiar to make a touch attack on my serape. He really should be ashamed of the quality of that scroll.”
Captain Righ
teous frowned at Dave. “I see you did your best to not let him escape.”
“Screw you, man,” said Dave through a mouthful of delicious turkey meat. “I haven't eaten in fucking days!” He tore into the turkey leg again, just to show how unashamed he was.
“Come on!” said Stacy. “He couldn't have gotten far. He's a dwarf. No offense, Dave.”
Chapter 10
Cooper woke up to the sensation of someone trying to hammer a nail, weakly but persistently, into his head. He'd get bored and go away eventually if Cooper didn't give him the satisfaction of reacting. One more hour. That was all he needed. He kept his eyes closed and willed himself to fall back asleep.
His efforts were further thwarted by a series of loud obnoxious squawks and slurping noises.
Hang on a minute. That's not a guy trying to hammer a nail into my head after all. That's...
“Fucking Ravenus!” Cooper said, swiping at the bird but only managing to slap himself in the head.
Ravenus flapped away with an extra loud and obnoxious squawk, then landed on the iron frame of a plain bed.
Chaz was standing at an equally plain wooden table, slurping something out of a bucket.
“Goddamn those guys could drink,” said Cooper. “Where are we?”
Chaz shrugged. “Beats me. Looks like some kind of prison cell.” He slurped again from his bucket. “They make killer soup.”
Cooper stood and joined him at the table. Whatever Chaz was slurping smelled really good. A little sour, a little spicy, a hint of beef and garlic. Some of that smell may have also been coming from the dead raccoon on the floor. Ravenus had already taken its eyes and maybe its riper internal organs from the incision down its belly, but Cooper tried to not let that spoil his appetite.
On the table he found another bucket and a wooden box.
Chaz pulled a lever on a faucet above the table, which puked out chunky red soup, steamy hot, into the empty bucket. He handed it to Cooper. “You've got to try this shit. It's going to change you.”
Cooper gave it a sniff. It smelled even better up close, probably because its scent wasn't mingling so much with that of the dead raccoon. It burned his mouth and throat, due to a combination of temperature, spiciness, and acidity, but he felt compelled to get as much of it into his belly as quickly as possible.
“Holy shit that's good,” said Cooper, filling the bucket again. “Any idea how much there is?”
“Hell if I know,” said Chaz. “This is my third bucket.”
Cooper gulped back a second bucket, then took his time to enjoy the flavor and texture of his third serving.
You've eaten. Now we must hurry to Glittersprinkles Grove.
“We need to get out of here,” said Cooper. “My axe really wants to check out that Glittersprinkles Grove place.”
“Didn't you hear what that guy said about it?”
“I caught bits and pieces,” Cooper lied. Then he figured, what's the point? “Honestly, I don't remember shit about last night. We should've eaten something more than tomato seeds before we started hitting the liquor.”
“He said it was crawling with the undead.”
And that is why I must return. My people need me to help take back their forest.
Cooper frowned. “I don't think she's going to let this go.”
Chaz shrugged. “Lead the way. If you can bust through that steel door, I'll gladly follow you out of here.”
Cooper had busted through a number of doors in his time as a half-orc. This one looked pretty fucking solid. Even with his Barbarian Rage, he didn't think he'd do much but shit on the floor. Considering their other options, his gaze fell down to the box on the table.
“What's that?”
Chaz set down his bucket and let out a small belch. “I don't know. I wanted to wait to open it, just in case it exploded or something. I wanted to be full before I died.”
Cooper nodded thoughtfully. “Good thinking.” He felt a familiar tug in his gut. “That soup's running right through me though. Maybe now's a good time to find out what's in the box.”
“Say no more.” Chaz carefully opened the box's lid. He and Cooper sighed with relief when it didn't explode. The lid came to rest when it was opened a little past upright. Inside the box, a bunch of small steel rods, each about the size of a cigarette, were lined up and stacked on top of each other. The inside of the lid had some writing on it.
“What does it say?” asked Cooper.
“How many triangles can you make? You have one chance. Make no mistakes. The correct answer will open the door. Answer wrong, and you'll be no more.” Chaz looked up at Cooper. “It's a brainteaser.”
Cooper frowned. “Shit.”
Chaz brought the box down to the floor and dumped out the rods. At the bottom of the box were two rows of ten polished stones, each with some mystical symbol carved into it.
“Whoa,” said Cooper. “What do those say?”
Chaz rolled his eyes. “Those are numbers. 0 through 9. We have to place the digits in these two empty slots to give our final answer.” He separated the iron rods into groups of five. “There's thirty in all.”
“Simple,” said Cooper. “A triangle has three sides.”
“Clearly our captors underestimated your mental prowess.”
Cooper took three rods and formed a triangle on the floor. “So what's thirty divided by three? That's got to be, like, at least seven or eight, right?”
“It's ten, stupid. But it's more complicated than that. Don't tell me you've never seen puzzles like this before. Didn't you ever have a hungover substitute teacher in elementary school?” Chaz made a diamond shape on the floor using five rods. “See? Two triangles, back to back, but they're sharing one side, so I only used five rods.”
“Holy shit, dude,” said Cooper. “That's fucking amazing.” He did some math in his head. “So the answer is... eleven?”
“I'm going to need someone else's brain helping here.” Chaz spoke some gibberish at Ravenus, who squawked back in return. They went back and forth like this for a while, until Ravenus flew down from the bedpost and started moving rods around with his talons. When he and Chaz were done, they had formed one big triangle made up of a bunch of smaller ones.
“Shit,” said Cooper. “That's got to be close to fifteen now.”
“There are sixteen individual triangles,” said Chaz. “Seventeen when you count the big one.”
“So is that our final answer?” asked Cooper.
Chaz ran his fingers through his hair. “That seems too easy. I'm sure there's more to it than that.”
Cooper, Chaz, and Ravenus stared at the pattern of rods on the floor for a long time.
“AHA!” Chaz finally cried. “I did it! I found the tricky ones!” He ran his finger over a triangle formed by the four small triangles making up the lower left corner of the larger one. He did the same thing on the lower right corner, and finally the top corner. “Three more. That makes twenty.”
“Whoa,” said Cooper. “It's like one of those Magic Eye posters they sell in the mall.”
Chaz chatted with Ravenus for a bit, then turned to Cooper. “Are we ready to gamble our lives on this, or do you want to see if there are still any we missed?”
“I was ready to gamble our lives on eight. Those last three you pointed out were like fucking sorcery.”
Chaz licked his lips. “Okay then. Here goes.” He removed the third pebble from the first row and the first pebble from the second row, then winced as he placed them in the two answer holes. Once again, the box failed to explode. In fact, nothing at all happened. Truth be told, it was kind of a letdown.
“Did it work?” asked Cooper.
“I don't know. I didn't feel anything or hear anything. I'm pretty sure we didn't die.”
Cooper farted. That soup wasn't going to stay contained much longer.
Chaz looked down at Cooper's ass and frowned. “Or maybe there was no giant tomato. Maybe we died when we hit the desert, and this is my own personal
hell. That may be more plausible than the tomato thing, now that I think about it.”
“Fuck you, dude,” said Cooper. “If I had to write a list of people I'd like to share a cell with less than you, I'm not sure I could do it.”
“That's because you're an illiterate fucktard.”
Cooper sighed as he pulled the Decanter of Endless Water out of his bag. “For someone calling someone else a fucktard, you sure seem to have a lot of trouble learning.”
“Oh come on, man. Give me a fucking break, huh? I was just –”
“Geyser.”
Chaz fell backwards as the water punched him in the face. Without Chaz blocking the way, the water hit the cell door, pushing it open.
Ravenus squawked.
“Hmph,” said Cooper. “How about that?” He deactivated the decanter. “Nice going, Chaz. Looks like you solved the riddle after all.”
He crept out into the hall. There was a cell directly across with the door wide open. Peeking his head inside, he found it identical to the cell they'd woken up in, complete with the bed, table, buckets, puzzle box, and soup spout.
Both cells and the hallway were clean and well lit, they served delicious warm soup to their prisoners, and they even had comfortable-looking beds in the cells. If one overlooked the “certain death for getting the wrong answer” aspect of the puzzle, it was nice to offer a chance at freedom. As far as dungeon prisons went, Cooper guessed that this must be one of the nicer ones.
“Hello?” he called down the short hallway.
“This way, big feller!” a husky, yet friendly, voice called back.
Cooper turned back to Chaz, who was still in the cell, nervously holding the open puzzle box with both hands.
“Something doesn't feel right,” said Chaz. “It's like they're toying with us. Why bother locking us up if they're going to feed us and let you keep your axe? They're going out of their way to show us how non-threatened they are by us.”
