Chronicles of a Royal Pet- Heroes Collide

by Ian Rodgers

  The collection of strangely shaped planetoids was also quite astonishing to see, though some seemed impractical. Who would want to live on a mobius strip shaped planetoid? Or one that looked like a biped? The riot of colors were also something to behold. One planetoid had been covered in puce and pumpkin-orange stripes; another was vibrant neon pink splashed with bronze polka dots.

  “So, who do you think lives in a place like this?” I wondered aloud.

  “Undead, most likely,” Dora suggested. “Lesser Demons and Devils, as well. Besides that? The dregs of society. I’ll bet good gold that there are slavers here, as well as all kinds of thieves, drug dealers and users, and a dozen more types of petty criminals who live here in exile and shame.”

  Dora sighed despondently. “It’ll be just like the Dreadlands.”

  “That actually sounds like a valid comparison,” I mused, thinking it over. Both the Dreadlands and the Elemental Plane of Darkness had terrible reputations, both had scarce resources, and all manner of undesirables and exiles congregated towards it.

  “But would people in a settlement attack us? That’s the important part to know if we go anywhere asking for information,” Gaelin asked us, pointing out a potential flaw in the plan.

  “Well, fudge,” I muttered. “That’s a good point, Gaelin. Dora, what are the odds of us being robbed or mobbed if we try to enter a random village around here?”

  “Probably more likely to get pick-pocketed than anything else,” she said slowly. “Even in the Dreadlands, there is a sort of honor code that towns and settlements live by. No one gets attacked within the walls of a settlement unless they’ve done something really dangerous or stupid. For the most part, it’s outside the walls where the bandits and slavers are, attacking travelers who aren’t well defended.”

  “That also makes sense,” I commented. “I guess we’ll just have to see for ourselves, though. The large clump of life force I detected earlier is coming up ahead. We should be able to see it soon.”

  After swerving around a string of cuboid asteroids, and cresting a planetoid that eerily looked like a gargantuan swollen eyeball, the source of the energy I’d spotted loomed up ahead. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before, and judging from the slack jaws of my companions, they too were stunned by the sight.

  What lay before us was not a planetoid. Or, if it was one, it was the strangest of a strange lot. A giant brass clam shell was before us, and I could see pipes and wires and gears protruding from its surface. And there, nestled like a pearl in the center of the moon-sized metal clam, was a city. It was hard to tell from our distance, but from what we could make out it looked quite advanced, primarily made of metal and glass.

  “Well, we’ve found ourselves a city,” I exclaimed in surprise. “Who wants to investigate the city inside of a clam?”

  “That sounds like the beginning of a horror novel,” Gaelin muttered.

  “Or a surrealist one,” Dora piped up.

  “Oh, you like reading those?” Gaelin asked her, tilting his head slightly to look over at her.

  “Not really, I prefer historical books. Though sometimes a good romance is nice,” Dora said with a smile. “Fiction isn’t really my thing, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, that’s because you haven’t read a fantasy story that grabs you by the throat and orders you to keep reading until the end,” Gaelin chuckled. “You should try ‘The Last Lance’ series. Very well written.”

  “I’m fond of biographies,” I piped up. “Tales of heroic adventurers were always my favorite to read. Liliana also enjoyed them a lot.”

  I sighed blissfully, remembering sitting on her lap or on the desk while she read story after story about the adventures that happened outside the walls of Sanc Aldet.

  “It’s funny, I used to find those books quite enjoyable, but ever since I met Lily, I haven’t bothered to read one of them,” Gaelin chuckled. “I guess when you live the life, it becomes repetitive to see what others are doing.”

  “Especially when they might not be as exciting as our own lives,” Dora pointed out. Gaelin and I chorused, “Yes, exactly!” at the same time, agreeing with her completely.

  “When they write a novel about us, they better not mess up and misinterpret us,” I huffed.

  “And if they make a stage play retelling our adventures, I don’t want a skinny guy to play me, and then just layer Illusions over the actor’s body to make him seem buff. Real muscles all the way!” Gaelin added.

  “I just hope they get my hair right,” Dora mused. “This ponytail of mine is my signature look.”

  “I thought your Healer robes were your signature look?” I asked, and she snorted.

  “Well, yes, that too.”

  We laughed and chatted all the way to the mysterious city in the massive brass clam. The closer we got, the more of the city and armored shell we saw, and the more our mirth trailed off, leaving us solemn with awe.

  Inside, factories and forges littered the outer reaches of the clam’s mouth, pumping out streams of smoke and steam that were invisible in the darkness of Quilloth. Arcs of lighting flitted between the buildings further inside, and a throbbing hum clung to the shell.

  As for the brass exterior, countless cannons and siege weapons bristled upon the shell, all pointed outwards defensively. They had enough firepower to destroy a similarly sized planetoid with little effort!

  Ringing the city, dozens of steam-chuffing metal boats patrolled the open space, preventing any unauthorized entry. Several long lines of visitors could be seen waiting to be checked before being allowed into the city. Some of the lines admitted flying ships of all shapes and sizes, others were for travelers like our group, who were using personal spells or artifacts to traverse the plane.

  Quietly and without wanting to raise a fuss to draw attention to ourselves, we flew down to one of the smaller lines to await processing. It moved quickly, though why I couldn’t say. The people in line appeared to be giving items to the guards.

  ‘A bribe, perhaps?’ I wondered. That made sense, but why would lamps and candles be worth more than gold or jewels?

  “Welcome to the Glorious City of Mez’Molzc, Fortress of Industry and home of the Seafood Factory, the only place in the Multiverse where the fish are handmade,” a guard clad in an ornate bronze and gold diving suit droned as we approached. “Thank you for using the Expedient Bribery Lane. Please present your bribe, then enjoy your time Mez’Molzc.”

  Gaelin and Dora shared glances at the utterly blatant display of corruption, while I rummaged around in my Dimensional Pocket. I removed a dozen simple wax candles from it, and handed them over. The guard peered at them, running a finger along the side of one.

  “Acceptable,” the diving suit clad figure intoned after a few more moments of scrutinizing the bribe.

  All three of us hastily flew past, heading towards the center of the city. There were docks, but those were for the vessels, and we didn’t plan on trying our luck around the rougher areas of the city.

  Now that we were getting close enough to smell the smog, the city was clearly a sprawling metropolis, and not just a tiny dot packed into a large bronze shell. The city’s ‘sky’ was quite interesting: Large lamps and spotlights peered down from the roof of the brass clam’s ‘mouth,’ lighting up the city and keeping it in a perpetual noon brightness.

  ‘In a place like Quilloth where it is constantly dark, light is precious. That must be why it was an acceptable bribe in place of currency,’ I mused, noticing how many of the newcomers to the city were abasing themselves before the lamps and sources of light.

  “If we’re not trawling the taverns, where exactly are we going to find information on rabbits?” Gaelin asked, and I wobbled in amusement.

  “The same place Princess Liliana found me. A pet store!” I declared, landing on the sidewalk near an upscale section of the city. We were careful to land in an empty spot with few pedestrians and no windows or ways to spy on us from a distance. Still, just to make extra sure
, we slunk into the shadows, and let them help hide us.

  “Really?” Dora asked incredulously, and I bobbed up and down.

  “Why wouldn’t they know where they’d be? And if that fails, the second-best place to look would be a business that sells vacations and tours,” I said.

  “How exactly would that help us?” the half-orc inquired and I chuckled.

  “Come on, now. You can’t possibly believe no one would find the Aether’s largest rabbit hutch to be a good vacation destination!” I pointed. “If a town in Brune can claim fame from being the home of Erafore’s wooliest sheep, or another location in Partaevia can become famous for housing the worlds largest ball of twine, then wouldn’t a place teeming with cute, cuddly bunnies be a famous tourist destination, even if it is in the Elemental Plane of Darkness?”

  “Oi, don’t diss my hometown or its admitted lame tourist attraction,” Gaelin piped up indignantly after I finished. “And I’ll have you know, it’s also the world’s oldest ball of twine, having been made over six hundred years ago!”

  There was a pause as Dora and I both stared at the halberdier in disbelief.

  “You’re proud of that fact?” Dora snorted, and the heavily armored youth shrugged.

  “Hey, it was famous before my town got annexed by Partaevia, so it’s one of the few things I can take pride in seeing as I’m trying to distance myself from my roots, as it were.”

  “Fair enough,” I replied, the half-orc Healer nodding in understanding. “Anyways, that’s the goal: pet shops or tourist zones. One or the other should have the information we need.”

  “Should we split up?” Gaelin asked. I was about to say no, as that just sounded like a bad idea when we had no way to communicate long distances with each other, until I remembered a certain trick I used back on Erafore.

  “Actually, I think we should. We’ll cover more ground that way,” I said. “Hang on, let me just get something for you two so we can stay connected…”

  I let out a grunt, and two tiny buds bulged into existence on my body, before swelling to the size of apples and popping off with wet squelches. Both Dora and Gaelin let out sounds of disgust as they watched me create two tiny coreless copies of myself, which I then passed over to them. Each of the pair gingerly held one of the orbs with disturbed expressions.

  “These are basically mindless clones. I’ll be able to tell exactly where each one is, and I can move my mind between them and talk with you as needed,” I explained, demonstrating my ability. The tiny Ooze in Dora’s hands began to glow gold, and I was soon ‘looking’ through its senses up at her. I made a tendril grow from it and waved at her.

  “Hello!” I said, my voice coming out all high-pitched and childish.

  “Gah!” Dora exclaimed, nearly dropping me in her shock.

  “Whoa there! These clones are a lot more unstable than I am! If you drop ‘me,’ I’ll pop like a water balloon and that’ll be the end of that clone,” I warned her.

  “Super weird,” she muttered.

  “I’ll check in every thirty minutes or so to see how you both are doing,” I said, shunting my mind back into my main body. The golden glow left the copy Dora held and my fellow Chosen Ones nodded in understanding.

  Gaelin placed his copy of me atop his head, and I made sure my clone secreted a few ounces of sticking solution so it wouldn’t fall off as he walked. Dora just opened up an empty potion vial and poured her clone of myself into it and put it at her waist, though she left the top uncorked so I could be heard when I eventually spoke to her.

  “Alright, we’re all nice and connected now!” I said cheerfully. “I’ll take this street, you two can go and have fun elsewhere.”

  “Are you sure you want to go around looking like that?” Gaelin asked, gesturing to my au natural body.

  “I suppose you have a point. Who knows who is working for the Void around here, and if any information on what we look like has been passed around yet,” I mused. “You two are kinda bland, no offense. Scary dark armor in Quilloth is the standard fashion from what I can see, and a grimy, grungy Healer’s robe actually fits in with the city’s aesthetics. You two should be fine. Me, on the other hand…”

  I sighed, disappointed. “Well, you’d be right, Gaelin. I do need a disguise. Been a while since I had to do that. I definitely haven’t missed it while I’ve been in the Aether.”

  I rose in height, twisting and bulging as thick pseudopods grew from my body, playing the roles of my ‘arms’ and ‘legs.’ A ‘head’ popped out of my neck, and my core swam through my goopy insides to rest right where a heart would be inside a normal human.

  Then, with a theatrical swish, I drew a long dark brown mage’s travelling robe out of my Dimensional Pocket, along with heavy boots, thick gloves, and a ridiculously large floppy wizard’s hat.

  To finish off the disguise, I planted a strong illusion over my body so I gained a face. It was an utterly boring and mundane one, with brown hair, brown eyes a slight tan from traveling in the sun for an extended period of time. I fished out of my Dimensional Pocket a necklace that contained a powerful obscuring enchantment, designed to make it so no wards or magical senses or probes could detect the fact I was a shapeshifted Royal Ooze wearing a coat and illusions.

  “Ta-da! What do you think?” I asked, showing off my disguise.

  “Not bad. If I didn’t know you beforehand, I’d assume you were a run-of-the-mill mage,” Gaelin praised, giving me a thumbs up. I returned it, my ‘face’ grinning eagerly.

  “Yeah, it’s not bad. Kinda bland, though,” Dora teased, throwing my own words from earlier back at me. I just nodded, pleased by the comparison.

  “Good! This way no one should recognize me!”

  “Or think you’re a monster that’s wandered into the city and tries to slay you,” Gaelin added dryly.

  “Also a very good thing,” I nodded. “Now! Let us be off!”

  We split up, the members of the trio heading off in different directions. Dora went south, seeking out the lower end of the city, though I doubted she’d find any useful information among the poorer districts. Gaelin headed for the middle-class region of Mez’Molzc. As for myself, I went deeper into the richer, more sophisticated reaches of the brass clam’s pearl. The best pet shops catered to the rich who could afford expensive and wildly impractical pets. And that wasn’t my bias talking!

  I quickly found a store that fit my needs nicely. Walking inside, I was struck by how similar it was to the place Liliana had picked me up from. The walls had built-in shelves that contained a number of animal care products as well as feeding supplies. Lining the floor were numerous tall cages and pens, as well as some glass tanks and aquariums. They were filled with an astounding array of strange creatures. I recognized some as monsters, but most were alien to me.

  A cat-sized snail whose shell lit up was in a glass tank next to an aquarium filled with a school of jet-black squids, each no bigger than a human’s pinky toe. A scaled dog that came up to my ‘hip’ barked at me from its cage, and a two-headed turtle lazily watched as I stepped past its tank.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the owner of the store asked politely, despite eyeing my less than elegant robes distastefully. She – at least, I assume it was a female, based on the voice – was a lizardfolk, resembling a bipedal iguana. Though as far as I knew, iguanas did not have buttercup yellow scales.

  “Yes, I’m looking for information on the Aether’s largest rabbit hutch, and was hoping you might have some clues as to its whereabouts,” I said.

  “That place? No, I don’t know where it is, or how to get there, and I can’t imagine why anyone would want to,” she snorted.

  “Um, why wouldn’t people want to visit a place filled with bunnies?” I asked cautiously, and the store owner hissed in laughter at me.

  “Oh, my, you clearly don’t what it truly is,” the owner said after recovering from her laughing fit. “It’s full of rabbits, yes, but not the cuddly kind.”

  “Oh. So,
flesh-eating ones, then?” I asked warily, and the lizardwoman nodded.

  “Well, that’s just my luck, I suppose,” I groaned in despair. Really, what had I been thinking, that it’d be a nice place to visit?

  I exited the store, dejected, and went about trying to find someone who knew how to get there.

  ‘There has to be someone around here who might know,’ I thought to myself in an attempt to stay motivated.

  My search ended fruitlessly, however, as not a single shop or random pedestrian I encountered knew much about the largest rabbit hutch in the Aether, save for the fact it was populated by carnivorous bunnies.

  ‘I guess it’s time to see what the others have found,’ I sighed as I checked the time with a quick Detect Time cantrip. I slipped into an alleyway and leaned against a dumpster as I sent my consciousness out towards the nearest copy of myself. I found myself on Gaelin’s helmet, looking down at a group of children in what appeared to be a park or playground.

  “…and that’s when I destroyed the skull!” Gaelin announced, apparently in the middle of telling a story. “Stopping the possessed remains and banishing the evil!”

  “Whoa!” the cluster of starry-eyed children gasped out. Who, for some strange reason, were all wearing tiny hats made of gelatin.

  “Did you really kill it?” a green hued child of interminable gender and species asked.

  “Nah, more like I finally let it rest,” Gaelin replied.

  “What about your fwends. Did they make it?” a cute centaur foal asked with a lisp.

  “Yeah, they made it out safely,” the armored Chosen One said with a firm nod of his head.

  I discreetly made a tendril, hardened it, and rapped on the top of his helmet. He jerked in surprise at the ringing sound, but rallied quickly.

  “Oh! Uh, it seems like it’s almost time for me to go,” the halberdier said, earning a chorus of disappointed “awww’s” from the kids.