In the depths of the ruins of Ort, a machine came to life. Literally. Half the machine _was_ alive. After a fashion. Muscles pulled, tendons strained, gears rotated, and exhaust ports - both organic and inorganic - spewed forth vapors that were likely the reason the machine had no scent receptors. It was a rather foreboding machine, filling most of the room it occupied, tendrils of gristle and wire extending across the walls. The druids of Ort didn't give all that much concern to aesthetics. Nor did they give too much concern to dramatic fanfare, as all the machine accomplished before going to sleep again was to dissolve a wide, opaque cylinder back into itself, with hardly any sound or effect but a brief rush of slightly more pleasant-smelling air. Oh, and a brown-robed figure collapsing to the floor as the cylinder dissolved from around it. The robe was rather coarsely woven, and spotted with fluids it would probably be best not to ask the origin of. "...man..." said the figure. Which is a pretty deep thought, all things considered, when your brain has been largely inactive for several months. "...Da... man... Damane... I... Damane...?" said the figure. This, too, was some fairly deep thinking, but its brain was starting to work free of the cotton wool. After this, it had many more deep thoughts. Not all were vocalized. Some struck it as insanely funny for one reason or another. The organomachinery of Ort, spurred on by mad laughter, slowly began to wake up... ================================================================================ -_-/ , ,, (_ / _ ; ' _ || || (_ --_ < \, \\/\ \\ \\/\\ / \\ =||= ||/\\ _-_ --_ ) /-|| || | || || || || || || || || || \\ _/ )) (( || || | || || || || || || || || ||/ (_-_- \/\\ \\/ \\ \\ \\ \\_-| \\, \\ |/ \\,/ / \ _/ '----` _ ___ - - /, /, ,, |\ - -_, )/ )/ ) || \\ ( ~/|| _ _ ' )__)__) /'\\ ,._-_ || / \\ ( / || / \\ < \, \\ \\/\\ ~)__)__) || || || || || || \/==|| || || /-|| || || || ) ) ) || || || || || || /_ _|| || || (( || || || || /-_/-_/ \\,/ \\, \\ \\/ ( - \\, \\_-| \/\\ \\ \\ \\ / \ '----` Chapter 13: END OF DISC 1 Impro started by Thomas Wilde This chapter by Glazius Falconar ================================================================================ The Lost Forest of Ort was massive and sprawling. The Lost Forest of Ort was full of strange creatures no man had ever seen. The Lost Forest of Ort was largely petrified, making straying off the beaten trails a dangerous and bloody experience. The Lost Forest of Ort... ...was disturbingly rectilinear, when you got right down to it. Darrow mentioned this to Sir Zertivex, who responded with an affable shrug. "The druid chappies could grow the forest however they wanted, and just pass right through it like... thingies through wossname. I rather think one of 'em happened upon a book of garden mazes one day and got creative. It was never really that much of a bother, after the first two centuries. Hardly ever shifts about behind you, unless you take to doodling on it. "Say," added Sir Zertivex. "Not _again_," groaned Hans, leveling a Baleful Barbarian Eye (tm) at Darrow. "You're all quite sure," continued Sir Zertivex obliviously, "that the only reason you want to see the ruins is to make sure that woodsy chap hasn't gotten up to any mischief?" "Yes," came the dull monotone in response. Sir Zertivex's eyes glazed over. "Not, oh foolish ones, to disturb the lost and ruined city of Ort, banished to the mists of antiquity to stand as a silent lesson to all those who would walk the precarious boundary between life and artifice?" "No," came a similarly dull monotone. Sir Zertivex shivered a bit as the sheen passed away from his eyes, and he spurred Lucille forward. "Ah, rather good to hear _that_, eh what? Hate to have to behead you chaps after you bothered to enlighten me like that and all, but duty is duty." A collective pained sigh arose from the party. That was the tenth time Sir Zertivex had asked the question, and they were all beginning to get a bit tired of it. Except Mewly, who never got tired of _anything_, and Harold, who- Yes, Harold. The professor's assistant? What do you _mean_ he's not part of the party? He's been in the story _how_ many chapters already? Oh, very well, have a flashback. ~~~~~~~~~ "Ah, the forest of Ort," mused the professor, staring out the... well, best to call it an "aperture" of Sir Zertivex's... well, best to call it a "house". "Ah," said Harold. "I'm sure the inexplicably active killer death robots are buried out there somewhere," said the professor. "Gah," opined Harold. "And who knows? Perhaps there'll be ancient cursed guardians and multi-headed beasts who are not only _not_ friendly but infused with several millennia of bloodlust!" "Urk," Harold responded. "I'm looking forward to your report, Harold," added the professor. "BWAA?!" said Harold. "Oh, come now," said the professor, sipping his... well, best to call it "tea". "Surely you're not going to tell me that you haven't got the enthusiasm I did when I was a lad, and that heading out there into nearly certain doom with my academic future hanging in the balance doesn't get that blood flowing!" "NyaaaAAaaaa," elucidated Harold, who was currently envisioning his blood flowing outside the confines of his body. "Why, when I was your age-" began the professor. "I'll go! I'll go!" said Harold, who had already found out much more about the professor's youthful exploits than he had ever wanted to. "Ah, good to see a little fire in your veins!" said the professor. Ignoring Harold's spastic twitching, he pulled a rather odd-looking device from his lab coat. It resembled a small crossbow, but had five times more wheels and gears than Harold had ever seen on such a small weapon. "Take this. It's a Personal Projectile Weapon Automated For Ease Of Use In Situations Of Severe Danger Or Procurement Of Hunting Trophies." "...it's a crossbow," replied Harold. "Not _just_ a crossbow!" said the professor. "Even someone of your meager skill -" "Thank you sir, may I have another?" mumbled Harold. "- can fire a perfect shot thanks to the auto-gyros and integrated self-loading mechanism," continued the professor. "You'd swear it had a mind of its own." ~~~~~~~~ In fact, the auto-crossbow _did_ have a mind of its own, at least as regards the question "Will you keep yourself loaded and wound to such a high tension that a leaf brushing against the trigger will cause you to fire?" To which its answer was a resounding yes. So now, Harold was attempting not to maim any of his fellow travelers, with the exception of the professor, who had stayed at Sir Zertivex's "house", and Lucille, who had gnawed on his head for a bit before Sir Zertivex had called her off and tossed her a... well, best to call it a "treat". He'd already lost a few of the quarrels but had thankfully been able to keep the autogyros from locking onto any of the components the professor had labeled "To Be Used Only In Extremely Dire Emergencies!" in very, very tiny writing. He was, in fact, so focused on the crossbow that it would take him a bit of time to stop walking whenever the party reached an impasse of some sort. After the crossbow had neatly parted Arica's hair, a concerted effort was made to keep him behind Lucille at all times. When they stopped, as they did now, the crossbow would go off and bury another quarrel in the inch-thick scales on Lucille's tail. Harold glanced down at the gyros, sighed in relief as they locked on to another normal quarrel, and peered out from behind Lucille's tail, which by this point was beginning to hint that there had been some manticore in her ancestry. An arm was sticking out of the ground. It was a rather husky arm, all told. Olive green skin, rippling with muscles, ending in a three-fingered hand, and overall about as tall as Harold and, if Harold was any judge, weighing about twice as much. It flailed about wildly for a few moments, then took hold of the ground and _pushed_. Amid the rising clouds of dirt and dust, Harold could see that the arm was attached to an equally massive body. As the clumps of earth fell away from its head, Harold recognized the face of an orog - "a fairly large humanoid, not very bright, and often used as mid-range cannon fodder or bearers of extraordinarily elaborate palanquins" according to the professor, and "five ribs and most of my spine will never be the same again" according to Harold, who'd been responsible for keeping one sedated. This was no ordinary orog, though. For one thing, it was much taller than Harold remembered orogs ever being. For another, as more of the dirt fell off, orogs didn't have ominously whirring metal rods and tubes sticking out of the bulk of their body. They certainly didn't come with integrated chainsaws and - was that a cannon? "This is going to make a very interesting report," thought Harold, with the detachment only a man staring into the face of impending doom can muster. "GRAAAR!" said the mecha-orog, some sort of amplifier lending a metallic timbre to its horrendous voice. "Tally-ho!" cried Sir Zertivex, as he spurred Lucille onward. "Gronk," said Lucille, as her goat-head came up in a disturbingly fast headbutt, lifting the mecha-orog off its feet. "NICHTENKREUZ!" exclaimed Sir Zertivex. A massive jagged black cross shot forth from his breastplate, crackling with energy as it slammed into the mecha-orog's chest. "Grnk," said the mecha-orog, flying backwards and smacking against a petrified tree-trunk. Four nines floated above its head briefly, and it vanished in a burst of reddish light. ". . ." opined Julian, whose sword was still halfway out of its scabbard. ******* "Oh, _those_ things? Pop up every now and again, like whatsits out of the thingy. Probably made by those druid chappies, they were into the whole _iron_ thing. They don't take much of a liking to myself or Lucille or... well, anything really. But it's not much trouble to put them down again, so no harm done, eh what?" Sir Zertivex reclined against Lucille's flank, giving her a pat and getting a disturbing three-voiced purr in response. It was later in the evening. The Forest of Ort was apparently rather _huge_, at least if you were following the maze through, and Sir Zertivex had called a halt to traveling when they'd happened upon a firepit in the middle of a rather large clearing. Of course, petrified wood wasn't all that easy to burn, so Catherine's Fire Parrot was now settled in the center of the firepit, on top of a mound of petrified sticks and branches. Every now and again, it would reach down and snatch up a branch, munching it with obvious relish as it slowly smoldered. Catherine had turned in shortly after summoning the parrot, fatigue a combination of a long trip and short legs. Mewly had been dragged into duty as a plushie, unprotestingly at first, but was now torn between the comfort of being held and the accompanying fact that it couldn't go anywhere and most of its field of vision was cut off. ...it's not nice to point and laugh at the cute fuzzy thing, you know. Hans was declaiming the saga of Gustav and Frea to Aquila, who was desparately beginning to wish that she hadn't asked him what it was. Especially since Hans was currently on stanza 1375, about halfway though the section from 1200 to 1600 where a wandering bard retells stanzas 300 through 700 word for word. "Gustav and Frea" is perhaps the oldest existing work where scholars have concluded the author was being paid by the word. Harold was thrashing about in his sleep and muttering fearfully about orogs, electricity, machines, and large purple earthworms with teeth. This was normal, for Harold, but everyone gave him a wide berth just the same. Harold's crossbow was on the opposite side of the encampment from Harold, under a faint shimmering field that Arica had cast. It looked about as disappointed as one could expect a crossbow to look. Darrow was examining part of the mecha-orog. Lucille, or to be more precise Lucille's stomach, had laid claim to the remaining parts. The professor, in keeping with Harold's fervent wishes and universal laws of dramatic irony, was assaulted by a monster as he slept in Sir Zertivex's abode. Unfortunately, the monster was assaulted by the professor's Very Sharp And Quite Hard To See Wire, which he had strung up because - let's be frank - you don't live for long as a mad scientist without _some_ sense of home security. Which left Julian and Arica up to talk with Sir Zertivex, who had just dropped the aforementioned bombshell. (Look, it wasn't _that_ long a digression.) "You fight those things... regularly... and win?" asked Arica. "Of course! I'm still here, aren't I? Bloody silly question to ask, really," responded Sir Zertivex. Julian and Arica exchanged a glance. The phrase "this old man is more dangerous than the monstrous creature he rides" was written down for future reference on some mental chalkboard. "Ah, by the by," added Sir Zertivex, grinning a rather kindly grin without a hint of cloudiness in his eyes, (and as a result looking considerably _more_ disturbing in his armor than he ever had before) "you two should really consider stopping by a church one of these days. After this whole business is over." Julian and Arica blinked, confusedly. "Ah... why?" said Arica, finally. Sir Zertivex chuckled. "Come, come, come. You think I haven't seen the way you look at each other? Life's far too short, well, except when you get geased, sort of thing, and you really should get married while you can still appreciate it." Arica blushed. Julian took her hand, gently. "We... are. And believe me, we appreciate it..." Sir Zertivex blinked a few times, confusedly. "No rings?" "We couldn't exactly... afford them," said Arica. "After that thrice-damned _fine_," she added mentally. "Well, then you should be at home raising children, not off gallivanting about in Moving-Under-Water-Safely Devices!" thundered Sir Zertivex, quietly so as not to wake up Lucille. (Yes, you _can_ thunder quietly with a few centuries of practice.) "It's rather a long story why we're here," said Julian. "As for children..." "Eeeee! That's really a neat parrot, yes it is," said Mewly, who had decided in favor of freedom and spent several minutes squirming out of Catherine's grip without waking her. "It's all burny and flamy and stuff and I never saw a parrot like that before. Did you see a parrot like that before? Wow, this is a neat forest. Everything's all hard! The parrot's eating wood, is wood good to eat? I ate grass one day, and the next day I ate flowers, and the day after that I ate grass again, but I never ate wood. Nyurf nyurf nyurf... OWWW! My mouf hurtf! Why doef my mouf hurt?" "...if children are anything like Mewly, we don't want any more," finished Arica. "Ah, well, that's a bit of a point there," said Sir Zertivex as he watched Mewly utterly fail to figure out that petrified wood was _not_ in fact good to eat. No, it's _still_ not nice to point and laugh at the cute fuzzy thing. "Never really had much experience with children myself," continued Sir Zertivex. "Even considering this whole eternal quest whatsis. I cut a bit of a strapping figure as a lad, you know, eh what? But there never seemed to be any young gel interested in becoming Mrs. Conqueror of the Tri-County Area." Sir Zertivex looked a bit depressed for a few moments, but quickly cheered up. "Ah well, still got a bit of life in me yet, eh what? And I've never had such a good friend as Lucille, here." He patted the beast's flank and it purred again. Harold moaned in his sleep and rolled over, but no-one paid him any attention. "As soon as we track this Ravenous Grunk blighter down, I suppose we'll head off into the world together, eh?" "Um," said Arica. "Ah," said Julian. "...it's getting late," said Arica. "We should probably get some rest so we can make good time tomorrow." "Oh, sleep, ha, nearly slipped my mind, eh what? This whole eternal existence thing can be deuced convenient for little things like that. Never need it, really, just gotten to be a habit, sort of thing. Good night, good night!" Sir Zertivex leaned back against Lucille's flank and stared up at what was, to him, the constellation Pimento Swiss. (Between Cardamom Edam and Not Quite Very Sharp Cheddar, and a few degrees of arc from Jalapeno Mozzerella. Sir Zertivex had quite a unique personal cosmology.) Julian and Arica slept fairly well that night. Mostly because Mewly was too absorbed in the Fire Parrot to really object to their sharing a bedroll. It _did_, however, learn that _burning_ wood was _certainly_ not a good thing to eat. ...oh, very well, point and laugh at the cute fuzzy thing. Sadists, the lot of you. ******* True to Arica's guess, they _did_ make fairly good time the next day. It was barely noon when they reached the center of the maze, and the ruins of Ort. "'Foom', you said?" asked Aquila, looking around. "Yes, only with a bit more gusto, you know, 'FOOM!' And a bloody brilliant flash of light and a shockwave made entirely of che... er. A shockwave," answered Sir Zertivex. Ort certainly looked as though it had been FOOMed. Several times. Perhaps even ZORCHed. With a couple of KABAMs on top. To be fair, in keeping with the druids' "we're evil and we don't care" motif, Ort was never all _that_ impressive a city. The mandatory catastrophic collapse upon defeat of its rulers thus left it in extraordinarily sad shape, mostly piles of featureless metal, stone, and long-rotten wood. There was still one intact structure, or part of one, on top of the rubble piles - a door, about six feet high, leading into a sloped passage downward and, presumably, into the ruins. "Ah, here we are, chaps, good luck in there and all that," said Sir Zertivex, smiling. "You are not goink to come vit us?" asked Hans. "To, say, thrash zat intruder into ze fine pulpy _paste_ he deserves to be?" One massive barbarian fist clenched. "Ah, much as I'd like to give the blighter what for and all that... Lucille can't get down into the ruins, much less move around down there. And I can't leave the poor dear up here, she can barely take care of herself!" Sir Zertivex patted Lucille affectionately. "Grunk," said two of Lucille's heads. "Grmmmf," said the third, as it finished chewing an orog arm and spat out a buzzsaw. There was much incredulous pausing. "...okay, then," said Arica. "Who's staying behind, Julian?" "Ah, an interjection here?" said Darrow, stepping away from one of the rubble piles. "No offense to the new people, of course, but you remember the clockwork tower of Durgard the Mad, Julian?" "Brandomere's fall guy. Yeah, I remember...." Julian sighed. "Thought we'd taken care of everything _then_, but..." "Right, right. And in this tower were, say, rotating blades, platforms with no apparent means of support, giant spinning gears that couldn't possibly connect with anything-" "Such a ride ve took on those!" said Hans, smiling. "Ze most fun I haff had since ze 34th Annual Axe-Tossing Invitationals back in Tarbis!" "...fun for _you_, maybe," mumbled Darrow. "But you remember the pressure plates? That needed three people to hold down and only opened doors as long as they were stood on?" "...dimly, yes," said Julian. "But what does that have to do with-" Darrow cut Julian off. "Do you remember the bizarre writing all over the place in that tower?" Arica tilted her head back, thinking. "Spidery, lots of loops... vaguely, but you were interested in it, Darrow..." "Yes," said Darrow, smiling a mirthless smile, "and look what I found just lying about." He produced a piece of rubble, still surprisingly intact and carved with some message or other - in spidery writing with lots of loops. "Guess who inspired Drugard the Mad. We'll need everybody we can take." "...right," said Julian. "We'll probably need two teams, if this is anything like Drugard's tower. So here's how we'll split..." ******* "I _still_ say he did this deliberately," said Aquila, rounding a corner. She wiped some hydraulic fluid off her cutlass and re-sheathed it - it was about even money whether something in here would bleed or leak. "But it makes sense," Arica said. "You know something about traps and, ...uh..." "Harold," supplied Harold, for the fourth time this hour. "And Harold can read this writing," Arica continued seamlessly, "and I can heal the both of you. Darrow's got a few million healing salves, but if he came with us, Julian wouldn't have anybody to read things." "I _still_ say it's because he found that ledger when he was on pedaling duty and..." Aquila trailed off, looking back at Arica, who had stopped cold, and Harold, who because of the sudden stop had ambushed a perfectly innocent wall. "Ledger?" asked Arica, brow creasing. "He didn't borrow money from you or anything, did he? We were pretty sure we paid everybody back before the last trip to Brandomere's castle, but..." Aquila waved her off. "No, nothing like that. It's just that... heh. Silly, really. The men were running a pool on whether I'd make a move on him or not. The bureaucrat filed it in with ships' accounts..." She trailed off. "I wonder what happened to the men, anyway?" ******** Elsewhere, Aquila's crew had taken over the Heroes' Guild ship at the first sign the Aqua Terror had disappeared, aided by their fury at losing their captain and the fact that none of the soldiers really liked Severn _anyway_. The first few days had been fruitless searching, but then they had discovered the simple fact that despite their current vessel's decreased maneuverability, legitimately flying a Heroes' Guild flag enabled _much_ closer confrontations than even the sleek hull and steady tiller of the Aqua Terror had ever allowed. But they were still searching for Aquila. Really. The frequent trips into taverns were reasearch. Rumor-mongering if you will. And the occasional assault on another ship? Well, who know where the captain had gone off to? She was as likely to be in, say, an outbound cargo of furs and spices as in yet another expanse of the vast ocean. And which was more fun to look through? ******** "It's strange," said Arica. "While we were gunning for Brandomere, nobody really even looked twice at Julian. Not even that Mei Min girl, and she hit on anything with a pulse. But _now_, every city has someone who wants to make time with the famous hero..." Aquila chuckled. "They'd make time with the famous hero no matter _who_ he was. Any hero is going to be a pretty good catch. I mean, they've got amazing skills-" "Most of Julian's came from the sword, really, but I can see him getting _better_," said Arica. "-powerful weapons-" "We gave the sword back. _And_ the Staff of St. Gideon, before the manipulative jerk decided to tag along..." "-lots of money-" "We're in escrow until we can pay that _fine_." "-and an ungodly amount of stamina." Arica blushed a deep, deep red. "...okay, that part's still alright." Aquila smiled. "You got lucky. Found someone before he _was_ a hero and stuck with him while he became one. Doesn't happen often, but when it does-" "NyaaaAAaAaaaa," interjected Harold, pointing at the corridor ahead. Aquila and Arica both spun and set themselves. Say what you would about Harold, he made a wonderful early-warning system. Four blobs of muscle and wire squatted in the passageway. Two of them began slithering forward, and two others shifted toward each other, twined their tips together, and rose up, shambling forward not unlike a disembodied pair of evil pants. Harold thumbed the crossbow's trigger and a quarrel shot forward, trailing yellow smoke from one of the "emergency" compartments. The quarrel streaked harmlessly over the blobs and between the "legs", clattering against the metal floor of the corridor. Then it blew up. Aquila sprinted forward as the blast wave sent the blobs flying, knocking them up into the air with three deft upward slashes. Arica spun the Staff of St. Gideon, mystical energy crackling. A wave of ethereal blue-white javelins shot forward as she planted it, pinning the blobs to the ceiling, where they vanished in swirls of red light. "Anyway, you were saying?" said Arica, as Aquila led them across a rickety catwalk over a yawning void. Harold tried very hard not to look down. ******* Mewly flew through the air, wrapped in an inch-thick shell of ice. It bounced a few times, sliding to a stop at the feet of a pair of metal-augmented broblins. They looked down at it curiously. The ice shell shuddered for a few moments, and then exploded outward, peppering the broblins with razor-sharp shards of ice. Mewly bounced up into the air as the broblins collapsed backwards and faded away, skipping along the walls and floor of the metal corridor like a demented superball and finally landing back in Catherine's arms. "That's a Mewly Bomb!" exclaimed Catherine, grinning. "Wasn't it a neat idea?" Hans also grinned, rubbing his hands a bit to warm them up. "Vas a good throw, ya." "That was a fun ride!" said Mewly. ". . ." said Julian, who had liked the part where Mewly was frozen solid, though he wasn't about to tell Catherine. "I'll just take care of that door they were guarding," said Darrow. He pulled a few small vials of acid from his cloak and carefully mixed them, adding a few drops of the resulting conconction to the hinges and lock of the door. After a few seconds, he stepped away, slipping a bit on the melted ice. "Right, that'll do. Hans?" Hans pulled one of many knives from his barbarian bandoleer and flung it at the door. It spanged off the bottom half, and the door slowly toppled forward, hitting the corridor with a rather pronounced clang. Beyond the door was... a ten-by-ten foot room. The metal walls were mostly blank, except for a small shelf on the far wall. (I _said_ the druids of Ort cared jack-all for dramatics, and I _meant_ it.) Darrow was into the room like a shot, examining the shelf closely, pulling a few books off, and paging through them. "Ha! I _did_ manage to figure this out after all, I _thought_ the door marked this place as a library. Even if it is a rather small one..." Something trilled shrilly behind Darrow, and he let out a yelp and took a quick few steps forward, slamming the book shut and tucking it to his chest. Now _Mewly_ was into the room like a shot. "Oooh! It's so cute! Can we keep it can we can we can we?" "It" was about a foot high, a fairly large toothed gear sticking up above the junction of four cam-and-piston spider legs. The gear whirred as it looked up at Mewly, and it trilled again. Julian sighed, holding a hand to his forehead. "You said that about the baby broblin too, Mewly." "Well, how was I supposed to know broblins grew up overnight and had a taste for blood and violence right after they were born? Besides, this cute wittle thing doesn't have any teeth or claws or anything, and it's all _lonely_ here! Aren't you? Aren't you such a wittle lonely cute thing?" Much to Julian's chagrin, the gear-spider tilted its "head" downward and whirred in what was a distinctly minor key. "It _is_ lonely," said Catherine, beginning to sniffle a bit. "Can't we take it with us? Pleeeeeease?" She looked up at Julian with big, tear-filled eyes. Julian looked at Hans, who was beginning to tear up himself, and at Darrow, who was getting re-absorbed in the books. "Alright, alright, but no more arguments. There's still a lot left of this place to explore, and we need to keep pace with the others. The paths met in Drugard's tower and they'll probably meet here, and I'm worried about what's waiting at the intersection." Catherine cheered, the tears gone from her eyes, and the gear-spider skittered across the floor and hopped up to perch on her head, gear chattering happily. "It likes me! C'mon, Mewly, we have to keep going!" Mewly bounced happily out the door, glad to have found a new friend. Darrow tucked a few books away and... well, not bounced. But he was fairly happy, all the same. And so they continued through the twisting corridors. ********* Harold was beginning to feel rather at home, all things considered. They were still walking through the ruins of Ort, of course, ambushed every now and again by mechanical broblins, smaller killer death robots, and the muscle/wire blobs, linked up into increasingly more complex configurations. Every now and again they'd step on a pressure plate for a while until the status light above it indicated that someone had passed through the relevant portal, or wait by a featureless metal door until it slid away. Ortean writing was scrawled on the walls, and Harold copied down most of it into his journal, noting down the occasional interesting bit about the physiology of the monsters, blobs especially, and following with some interest the affairs of one Celia, who was listed in many places as the person to call if you wanted a good time. What was beginning to make him feel rather at home was the way Arica and Aquila chattered about men, heroes, and the distinction between the two as though Harold weren't even there. It was rather similar to the way the professor talked to himself about winning the respect of his colleagues. And when they _stopped_ talking, a monster would try to maul Harold, much as one usually did when the professor stopped ranting to himself. Of course, Harold could get back at the monsters without the women wailing about losing an experimental specimen, and Arica made the mauling vanish a lot faster than the professor ever could have. They stopped talking, and Harold braced himself, but no onslaught came. He looked ahead. A figure in a brown robe stood at the end of a fairly long room, lined with shattered glass tubes. It slowly pulled back its hood. Harold gasped, and the crossbow went off again, further shattering one of the tubes. The face was a conglomeration of metal and wire, making concessions to eyes with two gleaming glass orbs and a mouth with an ovoid aperture that pulsed with light as it spoke. "So... you have made it so far... heroes..." The orbs flared with red light, and then narrowed to slits. "Who... WHAT... are you?!" demanded Aquila, laying a hand on her cutlass and striding forward. It laughed, a hollow, echoing sound. "Let me tell you a story... heroes... once upon a time, there was a young fool named Damane..." ********* "I am gettink _fery_ tired of zese blobs, Julian," moaned Hans. A dagger flew from his hand and caught a whirling blob-starfish dead-center, and a swipe of his massive sword drove the dagger's tip into something vital. The starfish fell apart, and the blobs disintegrated. "Fire Quetzal, spread thy wings, a blaze in the darkness!" called Catherine. Her Fire Parrot, apparently enriched by its meal, dove off her shoulder, wings spreading and flaring into an aurora of rainbow flame. Globs of fire rained down on a mass of blobs, linked and not, and they smoldered for a few moments before fading out. "Any ideas in the books yet, Darrow?" called Julian, sword a blur as he rained slashes down upon a towering blobbish octopus. They had followed the passageway to a fairly large room with a stairway at the far end, but as soon as they got halfway some machine on the wall had whirred to life and spat out a muscle-and-wire blob. And then another. And another. When the blobs died out, there were always more to replace them, and they kept steadily advancing, blocking the path to the stairway. They had pulled back and formed a defensive front, and Darrow was leafing frantically through the books he'd pulled from the library for some clue how to stop the machine, occasionally lobbing a flask of volatiles to blow a hole in the blob-hordes when they got too close. Darrow shut the book with a snap, and hurled four more flasks at the oncoming horde. They detonated with a sickening splurch, and the blob front shrank back for a few seconds before advancing again. "Yes! Finally!" he said. "Hans. You have a spare knife?" "I _alvays_ haff a spare knife," said Hans, grinning. "Good," said Darrow, pointing at a large blue button above the spout where the blobs were emerging. "That, there, is the emergency shutdown. We can't get to it, but _if_ you can hit it..." Hans laughed. "Bah. Zat vill be quite ze easy thing to do. Keep zem back for a bit, I vill need some time to line ze shot up, but it should not be difficult." Julian nodded, and went back to cutting blobs into small, quivering pieces. Darrow and Catherine tossed flasks and ice shards to clear out larger swaths of the blobs, but it was harder with only Julian taking point. He had retreated from blob-swipes several times, wishing he'd done some strength training, and was relieved to hear Hans yell out "DUCK!" Duck he did. The knife flew, not straight, but arcing end-over-end toward the button, to smack against it rather than impale it. For whatever reason, though, Hans's aim was particularly good that day, or particularly bad, and the knife struck the button point-first, cutting into it a bit. The machine clanked, clunked, and finally ground to a halt. Hans waded back into the mass of blobs, sword swinging wildly, and after a few moments the hallway was clear again. "Phew," said Catherine, as they walked along the floor to the stairway down. "I was worried we wouldn't ever have to stop fighting. I'm exhausted." Hans smiled and patted her on the back, gently. "Always zere is a stop to ze fighting, yes? You have quite the constitution, miss Catherine, and vould haff made a fine barbarian if not for ze whole magic whosis." Catherine beamed at the praise, a bit of a skip entering her step. "I was worried there for a minute, Hans," said Darrow, eying the knife embedded into the button. "A good thing nothing else came of that." Just then, an electric corona flared around the knife, and the machine rumbled ominously. Everyone glared at Darrow. Well, the gear-spider just pointed its gear at him and whirred a bit, but it was probably a glare. "I just _said_ it, it was Mister 'quite ze easy thing' who threw the knife!" exclaimed Darrow, moments before they all fled down the stairway, pursued by an absolute flood of blobs. ********* "...and so he came here, to find that power which he craved," rasped the robed figure with the metal face. "But it did not come without a price..." "Why are we letting him talk?" whispered Aquila to Arica, silently. "When he's talking, he's not attacking us," whispered Arica back. "And Julian and the others aren't here yet, we need to buy them some time..." "It's actually an interesting story," whispered Harold. Arica and Aquila looked at him strangely, then turned their attentions back to the figure, still wrapped up in expositing. ********* "Bathroom... janitorial... residential..." muttered Darrow as they hurtled down the spiral staircase, a horde of muscle and wire slowly gaining behind them. "Vat are you babblink about, Darrow?" said Hans, in between mighty barbarian intakes of breath. He had tucked Catherine under one arm and was taking the steps five at a time. "Reading the signs," panted Darrow. "Maybe there's something that can - Emergency Shelter! Perfect!" He leaped from the staircase into a small alcove, and Hans and Julian followed him. Five feet later, Darrow screeched to a halt at a blank metal wall. Hans slammed one hand against a wall to stop himself, and Julian slammed into Hans to stop _him_self. Hans leveled a Baleful Barbarian Eye(tm) at Darrow. "Emerchency shelter, eh? Vat sort of an emerchency shelter is..." Hans was cut off by a metal clang as a panel slammed, sealing them off from the staircase, and then a massive, echoing hammering as the blobs caromed off the panel and continued down the stairs. ********* "...and he agreed to the price," finished the figure. "And so here I stand before you... _as_ Damane." "He's still up on the surface, though," said Arica. "...isn't he?" The figure chuckled, a horrible rasping sound. "You think so? Ha! I will show you how wrong you are... eh?" A grate in the ceiling slammed open, and a metal-and-wire blob dropped out. Then another, and another, and another, and a veritable waterfall of blobs rained from the ceiling, the pile reaching for and engulfing the figure - Damane? - as it gave a terrible, grating scream. And then... the blobs began to fuse. Arica set herself, Aquila drew her cutlass, and Harold made sure the crossbow locked onto the little compartments with large red X's painted on them. The mass of blobs quivered for a moment, and then rose. And rose. And rose. A humanoid figure stood there, easily forty feet tall... with glowing red eyes and an ovoid mouth. =============================================================================== __ __ |\/| _ _ _. _ | _ _ _ _ _ |__)_ |_ _ |_ |__)_ _ |. _ _ | |(_|_)_)|\/(- || )_)(_|| )(- | \(_)|_)(_)|_ | \(-|_)||(_(_| | __ __ _____ ____ _ _ _ ____ _ __ __ _ _ _ _____ | \/ | ____/ ___| | | | / \ | _ \ / \ | \/ | / \ | \ | | ____| | |\/| | _|| | | |_| | / _ \ _____| | | |/ _ \ | |\/| | / _ \ | \| | _| | | | | |__| |___| _ |/ ___ \_____| |_| / ___ \| | | |/ ___ \| |\ | |___ |_| |_|_____\____|_| |_/_/ \_\ |____/_/ \_\_| |_/_/ \_\_| \_|_____| =============================================================================== And _boy_, could it roar. ********* "...that didn't sound good." said Julian, as the emergency shelter's wall slowly lowered. "No. But it does sound like a good target for some FURY!" roared Hans, not nearly as impressively. He charged out the door, sword drawn. More out of a need to keep Hans alive than everything else, Julian, Darrow, and Catherine raced after him. They were moderately surprised when the stairway gave out a few turns later. ********* Harold backed away slowly from the monstrous figure as it roared. So too, for that matter, did Arica and Aquila. Some things terrified everyone, save for the insane or the foolish. Hans proved himself one of the two as he fell from the grate in the ceiling, sword extended, and yelling a fierce war cry. He landed on the monster's shoulder, point-first, and it howled. Catherine was the next down, shrieking. Hans caught her, and she slammed her staff into the monster, sending a trail of ice down its torso and leg. The two slid to the ground, followed shortly by Julian and Darrow. Arica hugged Julian, briefly, as the monster thrashed about, cracking the ice. "You nearly missed the fun, darling," she said, almost laughing with relief. "You know I wouldn't stand you up like that," said Julian. "Darrow. Anything we can use against this in those books?" Darrow grinned, hefting a flask. "The way I see it, Julian, that thing has only one weakness." "Some vulnerable spot on its back?" guessed Aquila. "Maybe some elemental type it can't defend against," said Arica. "It's afraid of hamsters!" exclaimed Harold, and everyone looked at him oddly. Darrow shook his head. "No. Its weakness is... massive amounts of damage!" The flask flew through the air, shattered against the monster's chest, and exploded nicely. It shrieked in pain. "Zat I _can_ handle," said Hans. He hefted his sword, and charged. No one else was all that far behind. ********* And so they fought him, with sword slashes, and throwing knives, and Fire Parrots, and acid arrows, and holy javelins, and alchemic grenades, and Mewly Bites - though they didn't help much - and dual strikes and sacred blasts and napalm and phantom cannonballs and, what the hell. They beat him. ********* The druids of the Forest Mother were expecting the world to end. They still maintained the many layers of protection around their grove, though - the layers of woodturn to keep out arrows and siege engines and the wards to alert them to the presence of living creatures, to name but a few. After all, sacred was still sacred, even if the world itself _was_ doomed to a terrible, bloody fate. All the same, they shouldn't have been as surprised as they were when razor-sharp metal slivers rained down into the grove, killing many of their number instantly and forcing a few to send their souls into nearby animals before their bodies too succumbed to the lethal steel storm. A few squirrels, some sparrows, and a badger watched on silently, helplessly, as a troupe of orogs began setting the grove alight. And then their leader strolled into view. Davydd Fenwilde had been an archer. A really, really, good, split-apples-at- fifteen-paces-or-the-next-one's-free archer. And then had come... THE CROSSBOW. Yes, in the cloudy reaches of his mind, it deserved all capitals. _Any_ moron with barely even a year's training could use a CROSSBOW. Even if they were wearing platemail at the time, the movement required wasn't enough to make the armor restricting in the least. And they could get results comparable to Davydd and his mastery of the composite longbow, and (the important part) they charged quite a lot less to be hired out. But then Davydd had met Damane in a bar, and all that had changed. Now, he cut a rather imposing figure, sheathed as he was in iron plates that clanked ominously as he walked about. Steam welled from his joints as he brought his weapon up into position, and a crosshair target flickered into existence on the thin glass visor over his eyes. He had but to will it and the massive construction Damane had welded or grown onto his arm would load another flurry of metal slivers and send them whirring out unerringly, whipping from the longbow he still held in his right hand. His current similarity to the faceless legions in plate armor with CROSSBOWS did not even enter his mind, let alone strike him as ironic. He looked about, nodding as the orogs lit fires indiscriminately, and then his eyes fastened on a small tree in the center of the grove, surrounded by stones bearing runes he could hardly begin to recognize. "You there," he boomed, pointing at a nameless orog. "Cut that small tree down, I have a use for it." The orog scratched its head. "But da boss said ta burn all thURK!" It then collapsed backward, five metal shards forming an X over its heart. Davydd pointed at another, equally nameless, orog, which flinched. "It is one tree of many, and hardly old enough to give the master's former allies any power. You _will_ cut it down. I will take over from there." The orog looked about, trembling a bit, and then shrugged, hacking the tree off near the roots with a massive iron blade. It fell silently. Excellent, thought Davydd. A bit of young, springy wood. Perfect for making a longbow. There may even be some left over for arrows... In the woods, the badger slumped over from exhaustion, the sparrows flew ecstatic circles in the air, and the squirrels exchanged high-fives. There was still a chance after all... -------------------- PLEASE INSERT DISC 2 -------------------- Author's note: Phew. Longer than I wanted, but as long as it needed to be. Mostly last-minute, of course, but that seems to be a tradition, and thanks to Mr. Wilde for some spot-checking. Yes, the boss fight was rather lame, kudos for those of you who caught the Harlan Ellison reference, but _really_. Do the boss fights themselves ever advance the plot, or is that left to the pre-fight and post-fight conversation? More comments coming tomorrow, I'm going to whip up some future hooks and add them to the board, so keep an eye out... --GF