The lesser basking rok was called ‘lesser’ because it wasn’t quite as bloated as the greater basking rok. It was called a ‘basking’ rok because that’s what it liked to do best: bask. And eat. Perhaps ‘somewhat less bloated basking and constantly eating rok’ might have been a more precise moniker, but that didn’t fit on the little plaque at the zoological gardens.
True to form, basking and eating seemed to be the sole items on this particular rok’s itinerary, much to the chagrin of Zyxl and the other members of the procession. They were due at a state function at the Royal Complex in little over an hour, and getting there with this adipose deposit in their path was going to be problematic at best. Zyxl tried to coax it out of the way. He tried to intimidate it. He tried to reason with it. He tried the friendly approach. He made up stories about his tragic childhood to try to win its sympathy. He went into a stand-up comedy routine he usually reserved for regimental parties after a bit too much fuzzfruit razzle. Nothing engaged the rok in the least; it kept contentedly chewing on Yamlop leaves it had teleported up from the southern archipelagoes.
Finally Amyr-it himself came forward to see why they weren’t moving. He appeared pitifully small next to the hulking half-ogre.
“What’s the holdup here?” he asked Zyxl, who was standing there looking peeved.
“This rok here doesn’t want to move out of the way.” He gestured at the huge beast chewing placidly and staring out into space.
“What have you tried?”
Zyxl recited the list. Amyr-it smiled, reached down to pick up a small stone, rubbed it on the rok’s skin, and flung it suddenly and with considerable force at one of the creature’s heads. Instead of being deflected, it struck squarely on the nose of the right-hand head. The rok looked very surprised, stopped chewing, seemed to notice all the people around it for the first time, and levitated heavily into the air, disappearing after a few seconds as it teleported to a less crowded basking and eating spot.
Amyr-it wiped his hands together, smiled at Zyxl, and walked off, leaving the Captain blinking and speechless. “Deflection doesn’t work if the rok’s aura is on the projectile,” he called over his shoulder.
“Told ye they was stone deef,” whispered the soldier.
Chapter Five:
Prootwaddler
The Effluent was a dismal place. Through a diabolically efficient combination of magic and engineering, it had become the dumping ground for Tragacanth. Any refuse—solid, liquid, gel, colloidal suspension, liquefied aerosol, you name it—that wasn’t close enough to be piped in was teleported there by sanitation mages (the lowest rung on the professional ladder, just above street illusionists, who were considered mere tradescreatures). Located far out on a miserable spit of land in the least inhabited area of the kingdom, the Effluent literally wallowed in its own, and everyone else’s, filth.
Since all the garbage of the kingdom ended up here, the place had probably the oddest magical aura in existence. Broken but still magically active remains of every conceivable spell book, potion, amulet, ward, phylactery, charm, symbol, rune, and talisman were scattered randomly about, interspersed with many thousands of tonnes of shattered technical equipment. A fair amount of radioactivity was present, as well. All in all, it was the ideal breeding ground for strangeness, and the sentient creatures which found themselves evolving there against their wills were anything but happy about it. ‘Somebody will pay!’ was their rallying cry.
In the third year of the reign of Haxxos IV, citizens of Dreadmost, the nearest settlement to the Effluent, began to report odd happenings. Given their proximity to the Effluent, these folks were not unaccustomed to weird goings-on. They were hard to impress this way, in fact. However, the events that were occurring were definitely twisted enough to cause some stir, even amongst the more hardened senior denizens. Some of these old-timers could even remember what it was like before the Effluent forever changed the landscape, not to mention the air and water quality.
It started innocently enough, as these things often do, with some missing pets. No real shock there; the native conventional wildlife in the area was perfectly capable of absconding with the occasional small fur-bearing quadruped or unwary juvenile ornithosuchian. No, what really made the locals sit up and take notice was the way their missing pets kept turning up later with different body parts than the ones their owners remembered them having previously.
No matter how enchanted you are with your loveable little miniature duck-billed dragonette, when it disappears for a couple of days and then shows up scratching at your door equipped with jellyfish stingers and a musk gland, the honeymoon is probably over. Tragacanthan pet owners are fickle that way.
The phenomenon got so widespread that a new temporary industry sprung up overnight in Dreadmost: itinerant veterinary surgery. Wandering surgeons, most of whom had no surgical training apart from carving at the dinner table, would go door to door looking for distraught pet owners and convince them to shell out a few billmes to have the odd wing, fin, or bioluminescent sexual organ removed. Sometimes, by an extraordinary stroke of good fortune, the pets even survived these procedures.
Despite a boatload of hypotheses, the majority firmly in the ‘crackpot’ category, no one had yet figured out what force was behind the mysterious somatic enhancements. Some thought they were merely accelerated mutations, brought about by the decidedly unhealthy environment of the Effluent. Others opined that the extraneous body parts were attached by some feral magic or a crazed mage running rampant in the area. None of the armchair theorists seemed inclined to do any field research in support of their various propositions, however.
One resident not intimidated by the situation, or indeed much of anything else, was an ancient gnarlignome named Qrud. Gnarlignomes are known for being stubborn, irascible, and just downright ugly, even to other gnarlignomes. One additional trait of the species is an obsession with privacy; little factual information was available concerning how—or even why—they breed. Most people were entirely satisfied with this situation.
Qrud’s favorite pet, a near-blind burrowing hound he’d imaginably named “Digdog,” came home one winter’s day with rabbit’s ears grafted onto its rear end, and this pissed Qrud off something fierce. He pulled himself up to his full regal one meter height and marched out into the frozen wasteland brandishing an old bent walking stick his grandfather had told him was a magic staff. He stomped around for half an hour or so, challenging anything within earshot and waving the stick menacingly.
No foe rose to meet his challenge, and eventually he got tired and headed for home. Not more than thirty meters from his yard he heard a strange melodic whirring and traced the sound to a small rock outcrop. Approaching it cautiously, with staff poised and ready to strike, Qrud leapt onto a boulder with surprising grace and stared disapprovingly down at a wide fissure in the table rock below him.
There was a metallic blob in there; a rambling piecework of a robot studded with blinking lights and seemingly constructed from spare parts intended for a wide variety of instruments and machines, none of which were robots. Indeed, the only electromechanical apparatus Qrud could visualize not represented by one or more of the thing’s components would be a functional automaton. It didn’t seem to have all the right parts for what it was trying to be, no matter what that was.
The chimeric robot chirred away, seemingly unaware of Qrud or his misgivings. It had what appeared to be spotlights aimed out the openings in the fissure on either side, except that they were putting out very little light. It was a soft, fuzzy, blue luminescence, barely detectable by Qrud’s eyes. He realized it must be mostly ultraviolet.
As Qrud wondered what, if anything, to do about the metallic monster, he saw movement off to his right. Crouching instinctively, he watched a rather nice specimen of prootwaddler approach the crevice as though compelled. Proots were eight-legged segmented porcines—roughly a cross between a centipede and a pig—created as a practical joke by some ancient mage. They had proven quite
adept at reproducing, and so were now firmly established as a species. Qrud realized that his mouth was watering: proots made for fine eating, at least if you’re a gnarlignome and you roasted them long enough to burn off the fused chitinous shell. Stinky business, that.
The animal scuttled up to the opening in the rock without fear. Its attention appeared to be riveted on the spotlight, which was obviously a powerful attractant and seemed to have a mesmerizing effect as well. It stuck its snout just inside the crevice, sniffed a couple of times, and ambled on in. There was a muffled squeal followed by a low frequency static noise; the robot’s lights dimmed momentarily. The unmistakable odor of frying bacon filled the air, sparking naked hunger in Qrud.
After a few seconds Qrud heard a scratching noise coming from the vicinity of the other side of the crevice. He peered down into the darkness and suddenly a small figure emerged into the soft radiance of the spotlight. It was the proot, except that it now seemed to have something growing out of its back. While Qrud puzzled over the extra appendages, it suddenly unfolded its new wings and flew unsteadily off into the night, flapping the bat-like membranes in heavy strokes.
“Uch,” Qrud grunted, “Cherry t’warn’t a praper porker, or I dinna care tae tink what mayn befall. Flyin’ porkers canna be a gud ting.” He opened his palm and swept his hand upward in brief supplication to the gnarlignome god Arfsweener, protector of the world, asking for his purification of this bizarre villainy. From somewhere high above him, Qrud heard a thin scream that grew louder and more resonant until at the last possible millisecond before impact Qrud leapt agilely to the left. The rock on which he was standing cracked and split open, scattering lithic debris in all directions. Qrud was thrown clear by the impact. Standing up and brushing himself down, he peered into the newly-opened crack. There was a glowing fragment of meteorite embedded deep in the fissure with steam rising from it, positioned precisely where he had been standing a moment before.
Qrud’s malformed brow knotted and he stared up at the sky, hands on hips. “Missed me, ya uld sut,” he barked, shaking his fist and making a rude gesture with his multiple ear lobes. A deep, booming sound that could have been laughter echoed off the tortured landscape and died away like the memory of a miserable and protracted illness.
The impact had triggered a mini-avalanche in the crevice where the robot was lodged. When the dust settled, Qrud peered into the opening but saw naught save rubble. The spotlights were broken, one of them separated from its stanchion and lying in pieces on the ground. He heard no noise nor saw any evidence that the robot had survived the experience. Qrud grunted in satisfaction and waved his staff over the rock pile as though he were commanding it to stay sealed. He looked into the sky again, gave Arfsweener a thumbs-up, and then hobbled home, alternately grumbling and chuckling under his breath.
• * • * • * •
“The committee will come to order. Now!”
This last word was spoken with sufficient emphasis that the five other participants seated around the giant toadstool stopped throwing fairy buttons at one another and directed their attention to the speaker, an imposing figure of vaguely elven features, yet stockier and less angular. They were a curious bunch, this Committee for the Restoration of All Magical Privileges, also known as CRAMP: three weather-beaten elves, a kobold, an elderly ogre mage, and a leader of indeterminate race who dressed entirely in black (except for a single elaborate gold earring).
They met in a stereotypical sylvan glade, complete with faerie ring, in which their meeting table was the largest object. They had temporarily scaled themselves down to fit, both for secrecy’s sake and to save money on refreshments.
CRAMP was indeed a secret society. They took great pains to maintain their anonymity and conceal the existence of their organization. The few woodland creatures that passed by during the meeting knew something was up, of course, since you didn’t often see bipeds reduced to this size, but woodland creatures are, on the whole, not really interested in anyone’s business but their own. Most merely gave the proceedings a curious glance and a wide berth.
“Gentlemales...and lady,” the speaker began, nodding to the female elf among them, “Fellow Tragacanthans and members of our esteemed committee,” he paused to adjust his breeches, which seemed to be migrating around to one side of his hips—it’s hard to get clothes that fit well when you’re not even ten centimeters tall. “We are met here today to discuss recent developments in the struggle to restore magic and magical talent to the social pinnacle they once enjoyed in our fair land. Three among us have struck a resounding blow for the cause in Goblinopolis, only narrowly escaping one of the dark agents of technology.” At this the three elves looked uncomfortable and fidgeted. One of them rubbed his arm self-consciously.
A large iridescent green dragonfly drifted up and landed on the toadstool, directly in front of the speaker. It settled and began to clean its front legs. He rocked to the right and left, trying to see around it to continue his oration. Finally the kobold impulsively leapt upon the mushroom and kicked the dragonfly’s thorax, just behind the wings. The insect swiveled its head around and regarded him with inscrutable prismatic compound eyes, then took to the air with an angry buzz. It circled the meeting a couple of times and darted off into the woods. The kobold huffed and returned to his seat. The other participants tittered.
When a modicum of decorum had been restored, the speaker continued. “As a result of the efforts of these three gallant heroes, we believe a dangerous and highly subversive obstacle to our cause has been removed.” The ogre mage raised his arm. “If yer referrin’ to Pyfox, I saw the divil only yesterdy. He was veer much alive.”
The speaker stared at him for fully ten seconds, lower jaw quivering a little.
“If true, this is indeed unfortunate.”
“Ov curz it’s true. Ozervise I wedn’t hev sed it, pootis.”
The speaker turned to the elves, “I thought you said your mission was a success.”
The elves looked at one another. One of them finally spoke up, “Our mission was to plant the bomb. We did that, and we heard it detonate. We placed it as close as we could to where Pyfox and his gang were seated. After that we were rather too occupied with escaping to ascertain if we got him or not.”
The speaker closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then said, simply, “If you will excuse me for a moment.” He turned and walked to the perimeter of the faerie ring, disappearing in a little flash of golden sparkling luminescence. A few seconds later an agonized warbling drifted across the toadstool from somewhere off in the woods. The speaker reappeared shortly thereafter and resumed his position behind the improvised acorn shell lectern. He seemed to be about a centimeter taller than before. The other members of CRAMP tried to look nonchalant, drumming their fingers and whistling.
The speaker lifted his head and attempted to regain a somewhat dignified air, despite the sea of raised eyebrows facing him. He paused for a few moments, pretending to shuffle his nonexistent lecture notes, and finally cleared his throat to speak.
“It appears our itinerary is not quite so far along as I had believed. However, we shall not allow this minor setback to deter us in our struggle. We shall overcome!” He paused again, looking through his notes.
“You said you planted ‘the bomb.’ What about the backup device?”
An elf who hadn’t spoken to this point piped up, “I dropped that one near a goblin we saw leaving the pub after the first device detonated. He looked like he might be in cahoots with Pyfox.”
“Looked like? Did you observe him actually talk to or associate with Pyfox in any way?”
“No. But he was in the pub at the same time. He could have been an accomplice.”
“And of course,” added one of his compatriots, “he was a goblin.”
The speaker eyed him with a frown. “Please do not target any more unauthorized civilians. It makes for bad public relations.”
A strange whooshing sound at this moment was followed i
mmediately by a loud splat that shook the toadstool like an earthquake. An enormous deluge of thick white fluid splashed up and out, very nearly suffocating CRAMP in toto. As they gasped and thrashed about in the foul-smelling muck, they glimpsed high above them a large sea-avian soaring gracefully back toward the ocean. At a lower altitude they saw the green dragonfly circle twice and disappear. It seemed as though a thin reedy laugh floated gently on the wind from its direction.
“I ne’er did take to those wee green beasties,” muttered the kobold.
Chapter Six:
A Magical Beast
Tol stared at the report on his desk. It was giving him a colossal headache—but with a head the size of a goblin’s that is about the only kind of headache there is to get. He cradled his throbbing supraorbital ridges in his hands and tried to make sense of the words. “Forensic examination of the explosive residue indicates that the device was composed of an outer shell of finely ground carbonaceous material enclosing a phase-transduction hypermagical thermal core.” This last term was giving him trouble. He read it out loud slowly, trying to pronounce all of the words, one syllable at a time. It was rough going.
He stood up and paced in small circles in his cramped office, puzzling over the report. Three elves had planted a magical bomb wrapped in a jacket of charcoal outside a tavern. It had killed six people and injured thirteen more, covering everyone else in the vicinity in a fine spray of something like pencil lead. No one claimed credit, and no obvious motive for the act existed. He had tracked the elves to a park, at which point they had apparently escaped via a quantum portal—not an easy thing to come by in Goblinopolis, or even all of Tragacanth, for that matter. The peculiar mix of magic and technology left him uneasy—most folks were in the habit of employing one or the other almost exclusively. Except for a Magineer, of course, but it was ludicrous even to speculate that one of those could be in any way involved in this sordid episode. They simply didn’t have time or motivation. Besides, the only member of that illustrious order allowed in the capitol sector was Cromalin, the Loca Magineer. A Goblin of his lofty stature simply didn’t get mixed up with petty plots of this sort. It wasn’t even worth considering. Tol wondered why he wasn’t convinced.
Goblinopolis, The Tol Chronicles, Book 1 Page 4
