Bacca and the Riddle of the Diamond Dragon

by Jerome ASF

“Booo . . .” said the ghost carefully, thinking it over.

  Eventually, it nodded at Bacca. Maybe it liked the idea after all.

  But then the ghost pointed to the entrance to the mine where the yellow haired boy and the other villagers were still waiting, just out of sight. The ghost raised both its arms aggressively and make a scary face.

  “BOOOOOO!!! ”

  “Ahh, I think I understand,” Bacca said. “You’re a scary ghost. You’ve got a reputation to keep. I get it. Don’t worry—I’ll be sure to tell the villagers you were absolutely terrifying.”

  Bacca did an impression of a person who was very scared, knocking at the knees and chattering his teeth.

  “Booo!” roared the ghost in glee, slapping its thigh. It liked that a lot.

  The ghost stuck one bluish, slightly-transparent hand forward. Bacca reached out to shake on their agreement. There was a moment of awkwardness as Bacca’s hand passed right through it, so he simply moved his hand up and down over the ghost’s hand, in the closest approximation he could think of to a proper business handshake. The ghost smiled in appreciation. A moment later, Bacca felt his inventory filling back up with all the gold he had mined.

  “Thank you,” Bacca said. “And don’t worry, a deal’s a deal. I won’t let you down.”

  Bacca closed his eyes and took a deep breath, readying himself like an actor at an audition.

  Then he screamed: “Aaaaaaaah!”

  Bacca winked at the ghost. The ghost nodded and clapped its hands, appearing to enjoy this very much.

  “Aaaaah!” Bacca screamed again. “There’s totally a big scary ghost in here!”

  The ghost jumped up and down with pleasure. Or maybe floated. It was hard for Bacca to know for sure, but he waved goodbye to the ghost and hurried out of the mine.

  The villagers looked on anxiously as Bacca emerged, doing his best to appear terrified and white as a sheet . . . inasmuch as that was possible for someone entirely covered in brown fur.

  “That’s a real ghost in there!” Bacca cried in alarm. He allowed this half-truth to sit, and did not include the fact that he and the specter had actually got along rather well.

  “We told you so,” said one of the villagers.

  “Do you believe us now?!” said another.

  “I certainly do,” said Bacca. “But don’t worry. I barely escaped, but I was able to mine all the gold I needed before it appeared. We just have to, er, bring it back after.”

  “Bring it back?” asked one of the villagers. “What?”

  “Yeah,” said Bacca, thinking quickly on its feet. “If we don’t, what if the ghost is so mad that it decides to come out from the cave and haunt the entire village? I don’t think we want to risk that . . .” The villagers quickly shook their heads in agreement. “But don’t worry about it right now. We’re all good for the moment. Now I just need a few volunteers. I think three people would be enough.”

  “Ooh, me, me!” cried the yellow haired boy.

  “That’s one,” said Bacca. “Anybody else? Say, you two look about right.”

  He had pointed out a blacksmith and a farmer from among the group of villagers, and after just a little cajoling (it didn’t hurt to remind them that the gold had already been taken, so it was in the village’s best interest to return it as quickly as possible), he convinced them to join his group.

  Bacca and the three villagers walked back through the maze until they once again stood at the sandy cave entrance (not so sandy anymore, thanks to Bacca’s harvesting). They passed through it and headed down the dark staircase that lay beyond. As the blocks around them began to grow increasingly bony and morbid, the yellow haired boy began to shake with fear.

  “Are you sure we’re going to be safe down here?” he asked Bacca.

  “Yes,” Bacca said. “I’ll give you a few reasons why. One, I’ve been down here before and there’s nothing much to be frightened of. There are all these bones but there aren’t any skeletons . . . at least not any that are going to attack you. Two . . .”

  Here, Bacca took Betty out of his inventory and let it glisten in the torchlight.

  “If anything did show up,” Bacca continued, “it wouldn’t live very long. Three . . . and maybe most importantly . . . I’m Bacca. I always find a way to win.”

  “Okay,” the boy said, and he stopped shaking quite so much. “That does make me feel better.”

  They continued down, down, down the seemingly endless staircase. The oppressive décor of obsidian and bone never relented.

  “This is a very strange place,” noted the blacksmith.

  “It’s about to get even stranger,” Bacca said.

  Moments later, they reached the bony room at the bottom of the staircase. The yellow haired boy and the other villagers crept inside warily, examining the bone amenities with great caution. Bacca saw that Gargantua had not moved. His giant feet still faced the wall. (As, presumably, did the rest of him—unseen in the darkness above.)

  “Hello, Gargantua,” Bacca called. “I’m back and I brought some friends. We’re going to get started on this project. But still no peeking, right?”

  A thunderous voice shook the room.

  “I Remember,” it said. “No Peeking.”

  “Good,” pronounced Bacca, and he set to work organizing the villagers.

  “What on earth was that voice?” the farmer asked.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Bacca. “That was Gargantua. He’s . . .”

  Bacca decided it might be too frightening for the villagers to learn that he was addressing a skeleton as large as a castle (they seemed like they would take the news much worse than the boy had), and that the pillars appearing to hold up an unseen ceiling were actually its legs.

  Instead, Bacca said: “He’s . . . got his head in the clouds right now. Don’t worry, you’ll probably get to see more of him later.”

  “Okay,” said the yellow haired boy, though it was clear he knew just what was going on. Then he shouted: “Hi, Gargantua!”

  “Hello,” came the great voice thundering back. “Pleased To Meet You, Stranger.”

  Bacca ushered the villagers to the side of the room and began to position them.

  “Okay . . .” Bacca began. “Blacksmith, I want you to stand here. Pretend that you’re just now leaving your shop. You’ve worked a little too late, and nightfall has caught you unaware. It’s a situation that makes you nervous. Good. Exactly right. Farmer? Stand here. Can you make an expression like you’ve just seen something scary? That’s good, but even scarier. Even scarier! Perfect!”

  Finally, Bacca turned to the yellow haired boy.

  “Can you turn to the side and point, like you’re trying to warn people about something dangerous?” Bacca asked.

  “Sure!” the boy said enthusiastically. “But wait . . . Why are we doing this again?”

  “You’re going to be my artist models,” said Bacca. “I’m going to build versions of you out of blocks. But you’re going to be big. Really, really big.”

  “What?” said the farmer.

  “Why would you do that?” said the blacksmith.

  “Awesome!” said the yellow haired boy.

  Bacca told the group that they would just have to trust him. Then he started to craft.

  For Bacca’s plan to work, he was going to have to create versions of these villagers that were in proportion to Gargantua. He had intentionally selected villagers with darker clothing that would be easy to duplicate on a larger scale out of the blocks available in the room. Villager skin was a strange, indeterminate color, but Bacca had realized that in the shadows cast in this room, smooth red sandstone would look about right. Bacca used obsidian and stone for most of the clothing, and improvised for the rest.

  “That doesn’t look anything like me,” the farmer protested as Bacca worked away.

  “I’ve only done your feet so far,” Bacca barked back. “And it looks exactly like your feet.”

  “I’d have to agree,” the blacksmith sa
id, peering at the farmer’s feet.

  “That’s . . .” the farmer stammered, looking at the giant pile of obsidian that Bacca had amassed across the room. “That’s only my feet!? Most houses are smaller than that! How big do you plan on making me?”

  “Right,” said Bacca. “So now maybe you understand why I needed so much crafting material. Now, please be perfectly still. As you can see, I’m not even close to done.”

  Bacca worked and worked and worked. If anyone anywhere had ever created a larger statue of three villagers, Bacca didn’t know about it. Now and then his energy flagged and he started to think about resting, but then his thoughts turned back to the dragon orb—and how important it was to the dragons—and rediscovered the motivation to keep on working.

  “Hey!” said the yellow haired boy. “That’s starting to look like me. My statue will be done first!”

  “That’s because you’re shortest,” Bacca replied. “There’s less of you to craft.”

  “Oh,” the boy said. “I guess that makes sense.”

  Soon, Bacca was entirely finished with the boy’s statue. It loomed above them, its head nearly lost in the darkness above. As a finishing touch, Bacca smelted some gold from the gold ore he’d taken, and used it to recreate the color of the boy’s hair.

  “So that’s why you needed the gold,” the yellow haired boy said.

  “That’s why I needed some of the gold,” Bacca corrected him.

  The hours flew by, and soon Bacca had finished his three massive sculptures. They looked exactly like the farmer, the blacksmith, and the yellow haired boy—with the sole exception of being about a hundred times larger in every way. For a moment, Bacca thought it would be a pity that so few people would get to see these creations. Usually, when he worked this hard on something, an audience of thousands would come and view it. Then he remembered the riddle again, and decided it was okay if these objects had a very small audience . . . as long as they served an important purpose.

  “Whew,” said the farmer. “Glad you’re done. I was getting positively exhausted holding that pose.”

  “You’re exhausted?” said the boy. “Think about how Bacca must feel. He had to build three big statues!”

  “I suppose you have a point,” said the farmer.

  Bacca couldn’t stop to reflect on his work, because he was still not finished with everything. There was more to do.

  He smelted the rest of the gold ore from his inventory into gold ingots. Then he crafted these into enormous blocks of gold. When he had several hundred gold blocks, he built a temporary stone staircase that took him up the side of the wall until he was even higher than the statues of the villagers.

  “Hello!” called the yellow haired boy. “What are you doing up there? You’re so high, we can’t even see you!”

  “Just wait,” came the reply from way up high. “You’ll find out in a minute.”

  From his perch, Bacca began to position the gold blocks into the wall until they formed a giant circular disc.

  “Now I can see something!” the boy observed from below. “It’s huge! It looks like the sun!”

  “Good,” Bacca said. “It’s supposed to.”

  “When have you ever seen the sun?” the blacksmith asked the boy accusingly. “We live in a village in a subterranean dungeon maze.”

  “My family sells rabbit stew topside on the weekends,” the boy answered. “There’s a farmers market. It’s very nice.”

  The blacksmith grumbled. He had probably never seen the actual sun himself, and was jealous.

  Beneath his literally golden sun, Bacca built a long ledge of stone. Onto this ledge, he began to place the torches he had obtained in the village. Soon there were two piles of them, each ready to burst into flame at the smallest urging.

  “Okay,” Bacca said, returning to ground level. “I think we’re finally set. Villagers? I’ve really appreciated your help, but for your own safety it’s probably best if you leave now. If you want to watch what happens, maybe just go over through the doorway by the staircase, out of harm’s way.”

  The villagers were obviously curious—especially the yellow haired boy—but they did not need to be told twice to relocate for their own safety. Soon, they stood back at the entrance to the room, peering inside at Bacca.

  “Now,” Bacca said, “can you hear me, Gargantua?”

  An enormous “Yes” ricocheted back.

  “Good,” said Bacca. “We’re about to begin. What I’ve done is create a kind of ‘skeleton simulator.’ It will allow a skeleton of your proportions to experience—just for a few moments—what it’s like to be a regular-sized skeleton up on the surface of the Overworld.”

  “I Am Excited To Begin,” Gargantua said. Small tremors shook the floor as the behemoth shifted its weight back and forth on its heels in anticipation.

  “I’m going to give you a series of instructions,” said Bacca. “I need you to follow them exactly.”

  “Yes,” said Gargantua. “I Will Do So. Let Us Begin.”

  There was more excited trembling. Bits of dust fell from the ceiling of the room.

  “I know you’re anxious to start, but wait just a second,” Bacca said, racing back up the staircase to the ledge that held the torches.

  Bacca struck a flint to one of the piles, and it caught easily. In mere instants, all the torches in the pile burned brightly. Their flames were reflected in the giant gold disc on the wall. Because of that reflection, for the first time ever, the entirety of the enormous bony chamber was illuminated. Bacca looked out and saw the full body of Gargantua—who had to be the largest skeleton in existence—still dutifully facing the wall.

  “Ack!” the giant cried. “What’s Happening To My Eyes? The Light! I’ve Never Seen So Much Light! It Burns.”

  Bacca smiled. Gargantua wasn’t even looking directly at the flames.

  “This is daytime,” Bacca narrated. “The time that all good skeletons fear. A big, hot ball is floating in the sky creating this awful stuff called sunlight, which burns skeletons to a crisp. Can you feel the heat?”

  “Ahh,” said Gargantua. “I Can. It Is Horrible! Horrible!”

  “Yes,” said Bacca. “But you are safe. Like any smart skeleton, you are hiding under the earth. You spend half your time here. But you’re not sleeping. No way! You’re waiting. You’re carefully planning your next attack. You’re thinking about all those crafters and villagers and other people who you’re going to be shooting with arrows once the moon is out. It’s all you think about. It’s your all-consuming obsession.”

  “Yes! Yes!” cried the towering skeleton. “I Want To Shoot Them With My Arrows. I Want To Hear Them Screaming And Running Away. I Want That So Bad!”

  Gargantua’s giant bony fingers gripped his bow tightly. There was a sound like the hull of a wooden ship straining under the force of a typhoon. Bacca wondered how many trees—a small forest of them!—had been sacrificed to craft a bow of that size.

  “Now the sun is beginning to set,” Bacca said. “The day is ending. Soon it will be time to pop out of the ground and go on the attack!”

  “Yes!” said Gargantua, growing excited. “It’s Going To Be Great. I’m Going To Shoot So Many People With My Bow!”

  From his spot on the platform, Bacca gradually began to extinguish the torches that burned underneath the great golden sun. He went slowly and methodically, snuffing them out one by one. Sunsets in the Overworld passed quickly, so Bacca did not draw the process out any longer than he had to. Soon only a few smoldering torches remained, and he planned to keep them going to simulate the faint light cast by the moon.

  “Now the sun is down!” Bacca cried. “It’s night! It’s the time when all skeletons should rise from the earth and shoot their bows.”

  “Yes!” Gargantua boomed. “This Is Awesome! Yes! Yes!”

  There was an awkward silence, broken only by the crackling of the torches.

  “So . . . now you should rise from the grave,” Bacca said. Gargantu
a didn’t move though, and Bacca realized that never having done this before, he probably didn’t even know how. “And of course the way you would do that is by turning around!”

  “Oh,” the enormous skeleton said. “Right. Sorry.”

  Ka-Chung. Ka-Chung. Ka-Chung.

  Gargantua took several slow, deliberate steps as it turned around to face Bacca. The cavernous room shook under its weight. The enormous skeleton’s bony eye sockets scanned the area for a suitable target.

  “There, look to your left!” cried Bacca. “A villager! A farmer, by the looks of it. He would make an excellent target for your bow.”

  The skeleton slowly swiveled its skull toward the towering statue that Bacca had built of the farmer. It was roughly the same size as Gargantua.

  “Yes!” Gargantua cried. “A Target!”

  While the huge skeleton did not have lips to speak of, Bacca had the distinct impression that Gargantua was now smiling.

  The skeleton reached over its shoulder to a quiver. From it, the creature pulled an arrow that was longer than the tallest of trees. It notched the arrow with a loud thud! It pulled back on the bowstring. There was a sudden tension in the air, as if the whole world was holding its breath. Gargantua took careful aim at the lifelike sculpture, and let the arrow fly.

  There was a whooshing sound as the arrow launched across the room. Bacca had the sensation of someone standing closer than recommended to the incoming path of an airplane. The arrow struck the statue on the nose. The enormous construction wobbled back and forth.

  “A direct hit!” said Bacca. “A few more like that, and he’ll be done for.”

  “Yes!” Gargantua returned. “Done For!”

  The skeleton pulled another arrow from its quiver and fired. Then another. The statue of the farmer tumbled over. There was a deafening sound like a small building collapsing as it fell to the floor.

  “Hooray!” Gargantua said. “I Feel So Alive!” Then after a moment, added: “Relatively Speaking.”

  “Now look over there!” Bacca called out. “That looks like a blacksmith. He must have seen what you did to the farmer, because he looks really nervous. And you’re going to give him a reason to be nervous, right?”