Show of hands: who out there has ever had an Erector set? How about Construx?
Robotix? K'nex? Legos? Tinkertoys? Lincoln Logs?

Well, Jerry had something better. He had a familiar locked in physical form, a
massive laboratory full of necromantic, alchemical, and robotic components, and
two lifetimes of knowledge to tell him how to use all of the above.

Mewly stoically looked down at the arm Jerry was struggling to keep upright. It 
dripped with what was _probably_ acid judging from the effect it had on the 
floor, bristled with spikes, and was about six feet long. "It's... nice, master, 
but I don't think I could keep level with that attached," Mewly finally said.

Jerry sighed, casting a reluctant eye down at the arm before letting it drop to
the floor. "Alright, I'll _try_ to make it smaller. But you gotta get more
powerful _somehow_. That stupid _girl_'s Mewly isn't even _half_ as cool as you
are, so you _gotta_ beat it!"

"I know, master, I know." Mewly glanced at the door with a rather exasperated
expression, and jumped a bit as someone knocked on the door and opened it.

"Sir?" said Herald, walking a bit hesitantly into the room. "Are you finished
yet with-"

"This was but an enjoyable diversion, herald," said Damane, taking control of
his body back from the young sorceror. "What was it you wanted to bring to
my attention?"

Herald looked at the ceiling, feeling somewhat nervous - Damane's gaze was more
intense than anything that should come from a young boy's eyes. "You remember
that you said I should take incentive in small things, sir?"

Damane's eyes narrowed. "If you've endangered us with some mistake, herald, it
will not go well for you."

"No, no, sir, not at all!" said Herald, taking an inadvertent step back. "It's
just that... well, since we're going to make it _look_ like we're trying to take
over the world and all, I thought there was something I should get taken care
of... it's tradition more than anything else, but..."

Damane blinked. "There was an opening? And someone unaffiliated to fill it?"

Herald grinned, hesitantly. "Uh, yes. Rezard the Deep King got put down by a
large contingent of town guards - apparently 'I will devour your soul' doesn't
work all that well when you're trying to get out of a bar tab - so his spot
opened up and I figured, why not?"

"And the person you're sending... is competent enough?" Damane looked out the
window, as if searching for something.

"Outstandingly so, sir," said Herald. "I can't see why she wasn't working for
anyone else."

Damane thought for a moment. "Well, then, we shall see what happens. If she
manages to pull it off, I will be very interested in meeting her."

Herald nodded, turned to go, and paused a moment. "Do you think those veterans
are going to be able to make it here, sir?"

"They managed it twice already, herald," said Damane. "I see no reason why a
few more obstacles would even slow them down."

"...am _I_ an obstacle, sir?" said Herald, after a bit of quiet thought. Mewly
gazed down at Damane, the same thought suddenly crossing its mind.

Damane grinned, the ferocity of the expression looking highly out of place on
his boy's face. "For now, herald, _everyone_ is an obstacle. Even myself. But 
perhaps we can work to change that." He turned and strode back to one of the
laboratory benches, humming snatches of an old folk song.

Mewly glanced at Herald after it became clear that Damane had no interest in
continuing the conversation. "What is it, exactly, that you're having done for
the master?"

Herald blinked, taking its gaze off Damane, who was piecing together the
framework for another arm. "...I did a bit of research, and there seems to be
a common thread to this little game of world-conquering..."

================================================================================

              -_-/                                 ,  ,,
             (_ /     _   ;     '         _       ||  ||
            (_ --_   < \, \\/\ \\ \\/\\  / \\    =||= ||/\\  _-_
              --_ )  /-|| || | || || || || ||     ||  || || || \\
             _/  )) (( || || | || || || || ||     ||  || || ||/
            (_-_-    \/\\ \\/  \\ \\ \\ \\_-|     \\, \\ |/ \\,/
                                         /  \           _/
                                        '----`
         _                                 ___
        - - /, /,             ,,  |\      -   -_,
          )/ )/ )             ||   \\    (  ~/||    _     _    '
          )__)__)  /'\\ ,._-_ ||  / \\   (  / ||   / \\  < \, \\ \\/\\
         ~)__)__) || ||  ||   || || ||    \/==||  || ||  /-|| || || ||
          )  )  ) || ||  ||   || || ||    /_ _||  || || (( || || || ||
         /-_/-_/  \\,/   \\,  \\  \\/    (  - \\, \\_-|  \/\\ \\ \\ \\
                                                   /  \
                                                  '----`

                    Chapter 18: Beauty and Dancing Flame

                        Impro started by Thomas Wilde
                       This chapter by Glazius Falconar

================================================================================

Not for the first time, the professor wished he'd had the time to invent a
Stopping Swords From Being Thrust In The General Direction Of My Face Device. He
looked up at the sword being thrust in the general direction of his face, and
in turn the man holding it, who stared back at him impassively.

"Alright, alright," he finally said, taking a scrap of paper from his pockets
and tossing it down the worn stone shaft behind him. "There. Now can I come 
out?"

Sir Zertivex resheathed his sword, the glaze slipping away from his eyes. "Just 
so, just so. Sorry about the whole maniacal protection dealie, but it seems to 
be part and parcel of this whole 'guardian' thing, eh what?"

The professor sighed. He'd wanted to collect the last of his research notes 
before leaving the Forest of Ort, but had returned to the docking site to find
his ship long gone. Deciding to make the most of a bad situation, he'd been
exploring what remained of the Ortean ruins but found a very big obstacle in the
form of Sir Zertivex and his newly realized duty.

"Look," said the professor, "I'm _sure_ that one of those heroes was walking
away with a book from these very ruins, and I can't even bring out a _scrap_ of
paper?"

Sir Zertivex shrugged. "The little voicy-things didn't seem all that worried 
about the hero chappies, but they get all wossname over you. Can't seem to pin
down the reason, but a bloke has to follow his orders."

"Even when they come from voices in his head?" asked the professor, exasperated.

Sir Zertivex harrumphed. "Bloody disrespect for the chain of command, sort of 
thing, and I'll have you know-"

Exactly _what_ Sir Zertivex would have the professor know was cut off by a
rather loud explosion, making a sound not unlike "FOOM!", and a cloud of smoke
rising over the distant mountains.

"What in blazes was _that_?!" exclaimed the professor, spinning around to face
the source of the blast.

Sir Zertivex rubbed his chin for a few moments, then glanced over at Lucille, 
who shrugged as best a quadruped can. He suddenly snapped his fingers, eyes
lighting up with a sudden memory. "That happens every now and again, sort of 
thing, about... five years apart, regular as thingumabob. I think... I _think_ I
managed to pull it off one year meself, but that's halcyon days, faded wossnames 
of youth..."

"But what _is_ it?" continued the professor.

"There's a village there, y'see, sort of quaint rural wossname, only it's not
there _all_ the time. Travelling bunch of folks, and of course that sort of
destructive thingy's happening all the time..." Sir Zertivex trailed off,
looking up at the smoke as it dissipated. "Ah, and there they go off again,
nobly to the farthest reaches of excelsior..."

The professor sighed. "Can you bring yourself back to the present enough to
tell me what they _are_?"

Sir Zertivex blinked. "What who are?"

"The people in that village!"

"Village?"

"Over the mountains!"

"It's not over the mountains _now_, it's gone wandering off."

"But who _lived_ there?"

"Lived where?"

"AAARGH!" exclaimed the professor, spinning on his heel and tromping back down
into the ruins. Thousand-year-old writing was a lot easier to deal with than 
a thousand-year-old brain.

Sir Zertivex looked up at the dissipating smoke. "Ah, the some-whatsits, I
remember them well..."

*****

The little orb of flame dashed madly down the burning streets of the small town. 
It paused a moment at a four-way intersection and spun around madly. Water
_everywhere_. Two shimmering blue mantas in front of it, a large water dragon
closing quickly behind, a girl with pointed ears and scaly skin rising out of
a clamshell to its right... ah! The left was still clear, and there were still
some unlit buildings there! 

Truth be told, the _lit_ buildings were rapidly becoming _unlit_ buildings as 
the water-monsters brushed against them on their pursuit, but it wasn't stupid
enough to backtrack-

"Hold it!" 

The voice came from an alleyway to its side, and the orb pivoted. A grin spread
across what little face it had. Life, actual _life_ to burn! It reached deep
inside itself, stoking its flames and growing in anticipation of the upcoming
feast.

The boy, dressed in leather and fur, didn't seem to notice. "For invading
Farine's home, I'll kill you!" He dropped into a crouch, hair getting a bit 
longer and teeth elongating into small fangs.

The orb reached out with a tendril of flame, but the boy snap-drew a long pole
from a sling on his back and batted it away. He growled as the pole seemed to
twist in his hands, becoming a gnarled staff with a wickedly jagged point on the
end. "BEAST SPEAR!"

A sudden rush, a fuzzed blur, and the boy was suddenly behind it. The orb 
turned, slowly, to see a small flaming heart at the end of the spear, gradually
fading. A sudden burst of light filled its vision, and it knew no more.

*****

"Errriiiiiiiic!" The girl's voice was very familiar, and so was its current 
reprimanding tone.

Eric turned to face her. "Mmph?" he asked intelligently, mouth dripping little
bits of flame as he chewed and his Beast Spear shifted back to an ordinary
quarterstaff.

Farine put her hands on her hips and harrumphed. Her green summoner's cape
billowed back with the motion, revealing a plain yellow dress - slightly 
charred, no doubt by the same flames he'd just fought. "Do you have to do that 
_every_ time you use that... technique? It's a bit, er, gross."

Eric swallowed, feeling little tongues of flame course through his veins. "It's
the way I learned to do it," he said, leaning back against the nearest wall and
flashing a cocky grin. His head tilted upward, toward the swirling purple
maelstrom overhead. "I guess they're not all gone yet, though. C'mon, we can-"

"No, no, they're gone," said Farine, her brow wrinkling for a moment in
confusion.

Eric blinked a couple times, his haphazardly constructed cool persona falling
apart. "Okay, so why aren't we out of the freaky dimension they pulled us into
yet?" He pointed up at the purple sky.

Farine covered a soft laugh with one hand. "This is the dimension of summoned
monsters, silly."

"It can't be. You said only people and summoned monsters could exist here."
Eric tapped the wall he was leaning against with the butt of his staff. "And
this doesn't look like a-"

The wall rumbled slightly, buckling under the prod from the staff and shoving
Eric down to the cobbles, off-balance. "What the-"

"House-snails are one of the secrets of the village of summoners." Farine drew
herself up straight, looking down her nose at Eric, who was still getting to
his feet. "And that's _two_ favors you owe me now."

Eric stood up shakily. It didn't help that the cobblestones seemed to be 
quivering slightly. "Two favors?" he grumbled, looking down at the street and
weighing the wisdom of wedging his Beast Spear in between two stones for
support.

Farine grinned. She had a grin like a hunting cat, or so Eric thought, and he'd
seen a lot of hunting cats. "Mmmhmm. Two favors for two secrets. First, the
village of summoners, and second, the house-snails."

"You still haven't told me what a house-snail _is_," muttered Eric. Farine just 
grinned wider, and Eric started to feel decidedly uncomfortable. It didn't help 
matters any when the street buckled, dumping him against a wall.

Eric looked on with a sort of morbid fascination as the street split in two, 
revealing a network of small tendrils underneath the cobbles and more of the 
purple maelstrom underneath the tendrils. With a sudden, panicked burst of
insight, he realized that, if you looked at the buildings like the one that
was currently pulling away - or like the many, many others that were _not_
currently pulling away, which he found much more preferable to look at - you 
could see that the roof was sort of fused to the walls, and that the windows 
looked not unlike eyes.

He briefly wondered how they ate.

As the tendrils separated with a pronounced sucking sound, he quickly _stopped_ 
wondering how they ate.

There was a certain element of cornered rat in the grin he showed Farine. "Ah, so 
_that_'s a house-snail. ...can you make it go back the way it was? Please?"

Farine sighed, grabbed his hand, and yanked him onto a more solid part of the 
street. Behind them, Eric heard the street close up, and risked a glance 
backward. He didn't get a chance to see much of anything before he felt Farine 
come to a stop and yank his hand backward. Turning around, the first thing he 
saw was a long, sharpened shell edge inches away from his chest.

The second thing he saw, looking upward, was a nicely formed - if a bit scaly -
pair of legs standing on the bottom half of the shell, and the _third_ thing he 
saw, looking much more quickly upward, was a smiling humanish face - still fairly 
scaly, with swept-back ears - against the opened half of the shell.

"Hi, Farine!" said the fish-girl, smiling. She turned the smile on Eric, who felt 
himself starting to blush a bit. "So who's your man? He's not a summoner, or I'd 
have seen him before." Farine growled a bit and elbowed Eric in the stomach. As 
his vision bobbed up and down, he saw that the fish-girl was rather slenderly 
built, and scales covered up most of the parts Farine would hit him for looking at.

"Maaaaacyyyyy! He's not 'my man', we're just traveling together for a while!" 
said Farine. It wasn't the first time she'd had to say that about Eric, although 
every time he hoped it'd be the last. "He just helped me out a little on the road 
and we had to come back _here_ for-"

"Ohhhh," said Macy, winking. "So it was _just_ for the pageant, was-"

Suddenly, she wasn't there anymore.

"Am I going to owe you for this, too?" asked Eric, bracing himself up with his 
quarterstaff.

Farine sighed. "No, she'd tell you anyway. Macy's a minor regent. She has to be 
summoned by name, so whoever's summoning her will get _her_. If it was just some 
monster, the summon would lock on to whatever wasn't busy.

"And _before_ you ask -" Eric hastily closed his mouth - "no, I don't know how to 
summon any regents. _Yet_. But that's going to change soon." Farine folded her 
arms over her chest and stared off into the purple, swirly distance.

Eric scratched his head for a bit. "Because of that 'pageant' thing? You were... 
er, sorta talking about it before, but..."

Farine glared at him. "But?"

Eric coughed. "But... in your sleep, mostly."

Farine harrumphed. "The pageant is very important, so it's no surprise I'd worry 
about that. But I expect an _outsider_ like yourself wouldn't think as much. Queen 
Ashura-"

"What's this about Queen Ashura, now?" Macy was suddenly right back in the street, 
leaning out of her shell slightly and grinning. She raised a double-pronged 
fishbone spear to her lips and blew a few bubbles off its tip.

"I was _trying_ to explain the pageant when you interrupted." Farine's brow 
creased a bit in irritation.

Eric cleared his throat. "It's okay, really, I was just curious. You don't need to 
get all worked up about it." He smiled nervously.

Macy leaned out of her shell to tap Farine on the forehead. "You, young miss, have 
had a very busy day, what with the village's escape and all. If you want to head 
off to bed, I think I can fill your man in on the details."

"He's _not_," Farine began, but then took in Macy's teasing grin and her own 
reaction. She sighed. "Maybe you're right. I am feeling a little tired. You know 
the way back to my house, right, Eric?"

Eric grinned a bit weakly. "I can just ask the other houses, right?"

Farine sighed, waved to Eric and Macy, and walked off.

"Well, if you'll forgive the occasional disappearance, I think I can get on with 
giving you the tour." Macy's shell floated up into the air slightly and started to 
drift down the street. "C'mon, we can walk as we go. How much did she tell you 
about Queen Ashura?"

Eric followed along, slinging his staff over his back. "Not much, really. She 
was just starting when you came back..."

*****

The port town of Kossos-

_No_, it hasn't been pulled into the dimension of summoned monsters too. Hear 
the seagulls? And the waves? And see the blue sky and the actual, and pretty 
darn bright, sun?

Don't make me bring out the ASCII splash pictures.

Anyway.

The port town of Kossos-

_Yes_ we'll get back to Eric. And Macy. And Farine. And probably that earlier 
foreshadowing.

I just thought you might want to see how the protagonists were doing. Can I 
et on with the setup? _Thank_ you.

The port town of Kossos was located, as many port towns are, on the sea, and-

What _now_?

Look, _some_ port towns are on _rivers_, okay?

I'll just start this again.

*****

A warm, salty breeze kept the port town of Kossos fairly warm the whole year 
round. More than that, it kept the _beach_ of the port town of Kossos _usable_ 
the whole year round. On the average day, the streets and shops of Kossos 
were fairly empty, because most people came to enjoy the beach. 

The average tan in Kossos is only slightly lighter than that in Tarbis, which 
is no mean feat considering the Tarbisians haven't yet perfected the art of 
building houses the sun can't shine through.

Anyway, like many good beaches, there were out-of-the-way changing rooms, and 
from one of those rooms came a rather odd conversation.

"...this really shows a _lot_. I don't feel that comfortable wearing it."

"But honey, I picked it out just for you! I think it suits you very nicely."

"It's a little less than I'm used to. People will get ideas."

"I'll be there with you. Don't worry, I can take care of anyone who gets the 
wrong ones."

"...it pinches a little. Down there."

"You're wearing it a bit too high. Just pull it down _here_ and _here_ and-"

"Waugh! Cold hands, cold hands!"

"There, it's better now, isn't it?"

"...It is. Huh."

"Now c'mon, let's wow them! Go on, step out, go on!"

"Alright, alright, you don't have to push..."

And so Julian stepped out onto the beach, wearing nothing but an electric blue 
speedo just large enough to show off a red kestrel, wings spread majestically 
outward.

Oh, don't go gagging on me. He's actually pretty nicely toned. I mean, how many 
years has he been whirling a sword around and walking all over the world? 
Right, there are some scars, but they're _nice_ scars. They add panache. And 
suchlike.

Very well, you can take a look at Arica if you want, she's coming out of the 
changing room now. She's got scars too, you realize, you just don't see them 
under the robe. There's one running right under the center of the rather modest 
white two-piece she's wearing.

It's actually a little ticklish. But that's probably more than you wanted to know.

You can look around the beach for people who aren't scarred, but you're going to 
have trouble finding them. Mostly because I'm focusing on the protagonists, as 
I'd be here all day if I went through the bathing suits of everyone there.

Hans is nicely scarred, of course. He left his bandoleer at the inn today, but 
still has his sword because he feels rather naked without it. Tarbisians are 
weird that way. He has quite the impressive tan, but he's starting to get a 
little bit of an arsenal line and he's working around that today.

Darrow has a rather nice collection of fang scars running up and down his chest 
and back. He's wearing fairly baggy swim trunks covered with alchemical symbols. 
He bought them as a lark at WestConWizCon a few years back and is delighted to 
finally have the background to concoct some suntan lotion so he can wear them.

Aquila wouldn't seem to be all that scarred, and she's certainly turning a few 
heads in the tiny skull-and-crossbones tee and red striped short-shorts. But 
take a look at those tattoos. That winding serpent one around her left arm is 
actually modified from a rather nasty sea serpent bite. The artistically 
rendered cutlass across her stomach was a nearly lethal shot from one in 
ship-to-ship combat. You can probably guess how the stylized shark on her left 
thigh came about.

Catherine isn't very scarred at all, true, but she hasn't gotten to the point 
where any bathing suit could really reveal all that much. She's wearing a 
modest one-piece with blue polka dots. And a ruffle. She thinks it's cute, and 
it really _is_, even though I'm not doing a very good job of making it sound 
cute. 

Don't tell.

Harold is extensively scarred. He's also extensively prone to sunburn, so he's 
back at the inn, trying to find his sunscreen. He doesn't yet know that he 
forgot to pack it, so if he comes down to the beach it'll be in his normal 
clothes. Quite frankly, I'm relieved. 

Don't tell.

But the man in the black cloak near the edge of the beach... hmmm. He's 
_probably_ pretty scarred, considering his line of work, but there's really 
no way to tell.

You know what? Let's go take a look at him, the beach seems peaceful enough for now.

*****

Jason Stewart had not had a very productive day. Everyone in this damn town 
seemed to be bent on making his investigation harder. He'd flashed the Heroes' 
Guild badge and occasionally a few inches of his gun's stock, but nobody was 
opening up.

"Have you seen these people?" he said in a rather tired voice, holding a 
scroll up to one of the men at the top of the stairs leading down to the beach.

"Why... yes, yes, I b'lieve I have."

Jason blinked a couple of times, and did his best to stop from grinning like a 
madman. He looked evenly into the eyes of the old man who'd answered him. 
"Excellent. When and where?"

The old man leaned against the edge of the archway, glancing up into the clear 
sky. "Mmm. Lemme think. It was about... midmorning, right at this very arch."

Jason glanced self-consciously at the stock of his gun, flicking it silently 
open to make sure it was loaded. "Excellent. Where were they headed?"

The old man thought for a minute. "Mmm. Out that way." He leveled a shaky finger 
at the beach, and the horizon beyond it. "They said something about going to 
Tarbis, I think."

Jason flinched a bit at that. Tarbis. They had a _ship_? Or worse, an 
_airship_? Al_ready_? Hells, it was probably left over from an _old_ adventure. 
"And you're _sure_ you haven't seen them since then."

The old man looked carefully at the Heroes' Guild seal on the parchment, then 
at the drawing of the armored party of travelers underneath it. He turned an 
eye out to the beach and scanned the crowds of swimsuit-clad people. "Nope. 
Nope, I haven't."

Jason spat out a few choice curse words, crumpled the scroll and tucked it into 
an inner pocket of his cloak. He stalked morosely away, hoping the branch of 
the Heroes' Guild back near Shanri would see fit to lending _him_ an airship, 
or at least a small sky-flitter. 

He didn't notice the two old men behind him high-fiving each other, which was 
probably just as well.

*****

For what it's worth, Julian _was_ talking about Tarbis. Mostly telling Hans they 
couldn't go there. Yet. There was still the matter of the druids, at least to 
let them know what was going on.

At the moment, Julian was talking about the weather. The weather was nice. The 
weather was pleasant. The weather was something he could pretend to be curious 
about. Most importantly, the weather had absolutely _nothing_ to do with an 
electric blue speedo with a rearing red kestrel.

"It's rather pleasant here," said Julian. "Is it always like this?" He did his 
best to look the young lady he was talking to in the eyes. It didn't help that 
she was looking him square in the, er, kestrel.

Much to his surprise, she actually stopped and thought about it for a moment. 
"Come to think of it, it _has_ been a little warmer, lately. But that's probably 
just because the forest's on fire."

Julian suddenly sat upright on his blanket. Beside him, Arica did the same. "On 
_fire_? And nobody's done anything?"

The lady shrugged. Julian struggled to keep focused on her face. "Last time 
someone tried to do that, well... oh! There he is now!" She stuck two fingers in 
her mouth and whistled. "FREEEED!"

A man off in the distance stopped walking and turned toward them, pushing a cart 
across the sand on wooden skis. He grinned, revealing a few missing teeth in a 
stubble-marked face. "What can I get ya folks?"

The lady tossed Fred a coin. "These folks are new in town, Fred. One of your 
specials?"

Fred grinned wider, if that were possible. "Sure thing, Jayla." He reached up 
and pulled off the cylindrical white hat he was wearing.

Arica and Julian flinched back a bit. There was a fire burning on top of the 
man's head. They watched, morbidly curious, as he pulled a sausage from his cart 
and held it above his head for a few seconds, then stuffed it in a roll and 
passed it to Julian. "There ya go. One Firehead special. Good, ain't it?"

Julian essayed a hestiant bite, and then blinked. "...hey. It _is_ pretty good."

Fred cracked another gapped grin. "Ayup. People've thought that since I started 
puttin' thyme in my shampoo. Works real nice." He waved to the world in general, 
put his hat back on, and pushed his cart away down the beach, in the direction 
of another whistle.

Jayla chuckled softly. "'Firehead' Fred always gets that reaction from the new 
people. He tried putting out the last big fire in the woods, but apparently the 
druids set it on purpose. Something about the balance of nature. And ever since 
then, well..." She glanced down the beach after Fred, who was serving another 
horrified vacationer a Firehead Special. "...though this does seem a bit longer 
than last time."

Julian glanced over at Arica. "You think maybe we ought to...?"

She smiled at him and ran a hand through his hair. "Why not? Besides, you'd 
look kind of cute with your hair on fire."

He sighed and stood up. "Alright, let's get everyone else. I guess this vacation 
was going to get cut short anyway..."

*****

Eric suddenly stopped, leaping over a couple of shaking cobbles to get to a more 
solid perch. He turned and looked quizzically at Macy. "Cosmetics? You're serious?"

Macy grinned in response, turning a small pirouette in her shell and kicking up a 
bit of water. "Mmmhmm! Queen Ashura has four different complexions and 40 nails 
to paint. Some things just come naturally, I guess. And after _that_ the regency 
could stop hiring themselves out, so Queen Ashura came up with the pageant to 
decide who'd get to summon them."

"That sounds... er, like she's kinda vain." Eric looked up at the sky, expecting 
six hands of retribution to come from somewhere.

"It's not _just_ looks," said Macy, pouting a bit. "There are all kinds of tests 
and magical trials and personal interviews... well, there _is_ the swimsuit 
parade and the formal parade, but there's so much more than that. Some of the 
regents don't even _look_ at the parades. It's more... you get to show off your 
best and if a regent's impressed they'll come with you."

"So what impresses _you_?" Eric was feeling confident enough to try a roguish grin.

Macy giggled. "Wouldn't _you_ like to know, you little heartbreaker? But I _will_ 
tell you this. To impress Queen Ashura you have to be strong, _and_ smart, _and_ 
beautiful. Or handsome. And there's always strong competition for the overall 
winner. So wish your lady her best luck, because the pageant'll probably happen 
when you make worldfall again!"

The shell began to pivot away, but Eric said, "Hey, wait a minute! Worldfall? And 
the village escaping? What about those?"

Macy laughed. "That's _right_, it's your first time here. Well, y'see, summoners 
can be really powerful people. So anytime some mortal wants to make a big to-do 
in the world they try and take out the summoners first. When the village gets 
attacked, though, the house-snails can just jump back into this dimension, and 
the village can set up somewhere else. It's called 'worldfall' when the 
house-snails and the village go back into the real world."

Eric rubbed his chin. "So... heh. I guess I'm going to have to protect Farine a 
lot longer than I thought."

Macy smiled broadly. "See? You're her man already. Now g'wan. I think by the 
real world's time it's getting a little late."

The shell spun around and moved away. Eric turned and made his way along the 
shifting streets of the village of summoned monsters.

*****

He sat on a hill, near the foot of the high range of mountains. Beyond the 
mountains was the Forest of Ort, though he didn't know that was what it was 
called. He looked down at the charred crater that had once been a city. The fire 
orbs had done their work very well, he thought.

"There _was_ a rota," said a husky voice behind him.

He stood up, brushing off his plain brown robe, and grinned down at the crater. 
"Bah. Order is for the weak. The strong do what they want. Like myself."

"I may have to hold you to that," said the voice.

He grinned broadly and turned around. "Well, now, that might not end up being 
such a bad thing, my lady..." He frowned slightly. The lady was wearing a red, 
almost shapeless, hooded cloak, showing only the lower part of her face and a 
blood-red lipsticked mouth.

Then, she flung the cloak aside, and he gasped. But not for the reason you 
might think.

Oh, the woman had a pretty enough face. Some might say devastatingly so. But on 
that head was a greathelm that hid her brow in shadow and kept her hair neatly 
caged. And below the neck, a full, nearly seamless, suit of plate armor, picked 
out in artful gold tracings but polished and featureless, not even revealing the 
curve of the body beneath. And, to the man at least, she was terrifyingly familiar.

"Hells! It's 'Steel-Bitch' Iolanthe!" For a few moments, silence hung in the air. 
"...I did _not_ just say that," he mumbled in a horrified voice.

"Oh, I heard you quite, quite clearly," she said, regarding him imperiously. 
"Now. Die." The plates of her armor clacked against each other as she set her 
hands in a casting position.

"Oh, no, no, no!" He knelt down, plunging his hands into the earth. A humanoid 
figure began to struggle up out of the ground, shielding him. "You won't find 
Golem-Master Haum to be easy pickings!"

"We'll see." Her eyes narrowed, and she flung her arms outward. "Razorstorm."

A spray of whirring steel shards streamed from her outstretched hands. They cut 
through the still-moist earth of the golem easily, and had little difficulty 
doing the same thing to Golem-Master Haum's robe.

The thing the storm of shards carried with it over the edge of the hill 
resembled a rack at the butcher's shop more than it did anything human.

Iolanthe the Steel allowed herself a small smile. The spell had been designed to 
cut through the bodies of those shameless tramps who disgraced the name of 
sorceress with their indecent costume. If Haum was any indication, it would work 
rather well.

She stared down at the crater. Haum had beaten her to her revenge this time, but 
she would be there when next the village made worldfall. Ashura would see her 
power. They all would. And then she could take the place she so rightly deserved.

As she turned and walked away, she let her thoughts drift to the kind soul who'd 
hired her. Not one joke about her armor, not one glance below the neck, nothing 
but a simple question of purpose and a little demonstration of her unique arts 
on a straw target. It was quite a refreshing change. Perhaps she'd finally found 
someone to-

No. Time enough to think about that later. Now there was only the process of 
tracking the village...

*****

End.

Heh. I wanted this to be longer. I also wanted to bring in Ashura to do a little 
narration, but she was on call at the moment.

But I think it works, so far, and I'm hoping someone else will sign up to continue it.

If you need any help doing so, please feel free to drop me a line.

--GF