by B G Mitchell
A sigh of gratitude was heard through the room as Gary heard the kettle boil. Soon he would have a nice hot cup of coffee, just what ones needs when checking firewalls at 8 o’clock at night. He rubbed his brow and put a hand through his hair.
He was about twenty-eight years of age with dark brown eyes and hair colour to match and about five feet eight inches. He was wearing a red, striped, button up shirt with long sleeves as well as black trousers and slightly worn black shoes.
The lights flickered off, cutting the kettle short and causing the florescent lights to dim as he looked up. He knew that an electrical blow out like that would force the computer to restart and would undo some of his hard work. He headed back to his desk where the lights turned off entirely, leaving him in the dark. Cursing to himself, he reached for his large, black backpack where he kept all his necessary IT gear and rummaged around, and then the world turned bright blue as he felt his entire body pulled up off the floor, and then he blacked out.
The next thing he knew, he was laying on a cold, hard, stone floor. He slowly got up, his head feeling like it had just been used by a bunch of angry Australian rules rugby players as a stress toy. As he waited for his eyes to turn from blurry to high definition, he felt down by his feet and felt his backpack. He then felt further down and felt cold, hard, stone which was a bit odd as he knew of no places in the building which had a floor like this. The entire building had been converted floor to floor in a bland carpet that may have been regarded by ancient peoples as blue but was now a shade of grey that had a subtle hint of blue.
By now, his eyes began to send the important signals back to his brain, and he was able to focus on his surroundings. He looked at the stone floor which turned out to be grey (and not blue), but what was strange was he happened to be in a circle that glowed in a faint colour red.
He looked around the room and found it contained a solid, wooden table which had on it a couple of dusty parchments and a human skull as well as a large, red curtain covering a doorway.
Suddenly a face appeared before him and in normal circumstances he would of regarded that face as a very good mask, because it was red had the standard goats horns on top and a mouth filled with fangs, in order to make sure you had no doubt that his was a demon the face it even had the courtesy of providing a goatee as well. Unfortunately these were not normal circumstances and his confused and coffee starved brain’s reaction consisted of it going AAARRRGGGH, and he immediately turned and ran straight into the edge of the circle which resulted in a rather loud bang and the feeling like he ran into a solid wall. He had met what any geek would call a force field and what he would call damn painful. The face then appeared again as he lay on the floor, and the logic centres in his brain no doubt spurred on by the adrenaline rushing through his body, tried to explain his current predicament, and it came to the not unreasonable conclusion that it was an overly elaborate prank.
He then noticed the rest of the body attached to the face which happened to be attached to a thickly muscled red neck and a thick muscled torso. There was no doubt about it in Gary's mind this was a demon and checked all important tickets boxes in regard to the standard demon setup. He really wished it was a daemon (IT joke, ask the person who fixes your computers) at least he knew how to fix them.
This demon was wearing a pair of grey and heavily torn pants tied with a string. It also had a pair of cloven hooves, and to make the image more striking, it then unfurled it’s large bat wings and pointed his hands up to the ceiling and said in a rather load voice, “Behold I am Urgath, and you puny mortal have been summoned and shall serve me.” (Demons are not that smart and rather like to follow the whole demon script thing.) He then pointed at Gary rather dramatically as if there was someone else in the room. Gary turned around just to make sure the demon was talking to him when he confirmed no one was there. The humorous part of his brain thought, great I have been summoned by a cliché but the rest of his brain told it to shut up.
Gary decided to take charge of the situation and act like the man he was and spoke out in a voice that a deaf man could tell was nervous. “Uhhh me?”
The demon looked at him like he was something he had found underneath a McDonalds table. He then again pulled himself up to full height. The humorous part of Gary wondered if Urgath was about to come out with another clichéd line, no doubt including excessive uses of the word puny and mortal.
“Listen here puny mortal.”
If Gary was not so focused on the demons he would of rolled his eyes slightly.
“I can offer you many riches and many other fantastic things if you only choose to obey me, the great Urgath.”
Gary’s brain, being well trained with the marketing minefield of the early twenty-first century on Earth, where they sell types of toothpaste and made them sound more complex than nuclear submarines, it told him to be wary. When the seller was dressed as a demon and used the phrase “puny mortal” and called themselves “great” it was a case of buyer beware.
Although part of him hoped he was still in the twenty-first century on Earth and this was a very elaborate way to get him to buy a time share. “Okay, you have my undivided attention.”
“Good mortal, I have summoned you here so you can use your technical skills to get my ultimate weapons working and make me the most powerful demon in the damned plains.”
Gary’s brain remembered an important fact. “Hold on a sec, aren’t I meant to summon you rather than you coming to me?”
Urgath smiled. “Well, mortal, in my dimension, yes, but since you are from another dimension, I can summon you like one can summon a demon. Rather ironic, I grant you.”
Gary personally did not see the irony himself as he tended not to summon demons and should see no reason why they should return the favour.
Figuring he had no choice, Gary looked at the demon, keen to ask him about what technical skills he meant, but before he could speak, the demon pulled back the red curtain to reveal a doorway into a rather large room, in the middle of which stood what looked like a flat nose rocket lying on its side.
Urgath then kicked out a part of the glowing, red circle, causing it to stop glowing. “I am glad you have decided to join, for if you did not, then I would have surely killed you in the most horrible manner.”
Gary sighed. He really wanted that cup of hot coffee now. As he got closer to see the rocket, it was old and had a few dents in places. He also noted the writing on the side was written in Russian. It looked like what a ICBM would look like had it not been well maintained and used as a bumper car. Urgath then handed him a small, paperback book then spoke again in a great demon-like voice to accentuate his words, “This is the tome used to activate the ultimate power which this… I think you humans call it a Hydra bomb, no doubt it will give me the power of the ancient Hydra... yes?”
Gary looked at Urgath and knew that the demon had no idea of the devices real function or purpose. The demon continued, obviously looking forward to receiving the power of this device. “The script in the tome is strange, and I cannot make it out. You shall get it working, obviously being a mage in the technical arts.” He looked at the manual. He himself did not speak Russian as well and given the current choice of death by a demon and death by a thermonuclear device, he thought he better take a look, knowing full well that no life insurance company would even think of selling him any sort of insurance now.
He looked at the device and found a small hatch which he opened up to take a look inside. He looked at the manual and wondered briefly if it was worth asking for an English version, but he scratched that idea, figuring the Russians weren’t going to print an English version just in case. He turned to Urgath and awkward
ly smiled as the demon scrutinized him. He looked at the panel, hoping it would give him some answers and inside he only found a lot of cables all connected to a light brown circuit board with a small LCD number display on it. He then noticed one of the cables was not connected correctly.
Anyone with half a brain would of course figure some technical excuse, saying they needed a part which should take a couple of days to arrive (or ask important question like where in hell (*literately) one would find an ancient soviet ICBM?). Instead of playing around inside a potential nuclear bomb it is one of the important rules in life, like stay away from burning buildings, don’t ever attend a Justin Bieber concert unless you’re a fourteen-year-old girl, and never play with circuit panels in cold war era ICBM (or any other era for that matter).
The reason Gary gave for pushing the loose cable onto the circuit board would be because he had nothing to lose, but the real reason is he was an IT technician and he saw something wrong so he had to fix it. When he did push the wire on to the board it did make a small spark and the LCD display light up displaying the number five, the missile began to make a hum as a couple of vents opened and let off what he hoped was steam.
This aroused Urgath’s interest, who let out an evil laugh. “It shall unleash the ultimate power now, yes?”
Gary, now making his way slowly to his screwdriver, nodded to Urgath and said in a voice that should have set off warning bells, “umm yeah.”
Urgath seemed pleased. Gary picked up his bag and looked for another door, which he noticed in the corner, his mind acting fast this time figuring that a smoking thermonuclear device was a time to run. “This unleashing of the ultimate power does have a few side effects on us puny mortals so I am just going to the next room.” Urgath did not notice him and did not seem to hear him as he headed for the door, too engrossed in the power he was about to receive.
Gary found a staircase which he ran down as fast as he could where he entered a large room. He saw a small bag on the table and decided to grab it, figuring the demon was not going to miss it.
He headed out of the large, double doors into the open area and saw a hellish landscape that consisted of hills of blood red stone, lakes of boiling lava, and smoking pits no doubt the designer had read “how to design hell for dummies” (a reference guide for the rest of us). It also included other towers and castles as well. No doubt homes of many other demons. He wondered if someone setting off a nuclear device would improve the scenery, but decided not to stick around and compare.
He ran towards the next tower about three hundred meters away, as that seemed to be the only thing not on fire to run to. He wondered how far one had to run to outrun a nuclear explosion and how powerful the device he set off would be. As he reached the next tower, he burst in hoping to take cover in its solid, stone structure and hoping that the device was small enough not to cause that much damage.
Galtagh stood in his waiting hall. He was an old demon that had fallen from grace and had been pushed out by the demon lord to this small holding of a single tower next to Urgath the Mad. A demon with all sorts of strange ideas, and he did not have that great a neighbour. He took a look out his window to see the large and intimidating castle of the demon lord above on the highest hill overlooking the valley he happened to be in.
He knew what he had to do to get back in favour and that was to get more souls for his prince, and all it required was one summoning. The only problem was he had not been summoned in two hundred years. He then felt a slight tingle as a blue light appeared in the centre of his room. He felt his confidence grow as the blue light formed into a circle which got larger and larger, at last he was being summoned at last he would be back in the mortal realm and he could do his lord’s evil bidding. He then heard the door fly open as a black headed human carrying a black bag came in and started running towards him. He was rather shocked, as humans tended to run from him rather than towards him. The human then ducked under him and jumped into the now fully developed portal, while shouting out, “excuse me.”
He turned towards the portal which now seemed to be destabilizing. He was about to vow to find the human and make him suffer for losing the opportunity to regain his demon honour and to of course kill him horribly. He then heard a loud roar coming from Urgath’s tower. He looked out of the window to see smoke pouring out of the upstairs window.
Urgath stood there as the device continued to make strange noises. He had not even noticed the human had already left soon. He thought to himself that all the power would be his. He would be able to destroy the demon lord and anyone else who mocked him, he would make all his enemies pay, but before he had a chance to create new and horrible punishments, the end of the device suddenly lit up in flames, unleashing a loud roar.
The small logic sector in Urgath’s brain immediately wondered if this had been a good idea. He turned and looked for the human as the device suddenly slammed itself into the castle wall, causing it to shake and sending Urgath to his feet. He got up as the room began to fill with thick, black smoke. He then heard a loud click, and everything went white.
Gary stood up, checked and dusted himself off, and grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He then noticed in front of him were two, what he remembered from his role playing and fantasy novel days as the dark elves, a race of elves based in the underground. One was currently dressed in a red robe with blue eyes and pitch black skin as well as short, white hair and, of course, pointed ears. The other had a grey robe, and his face contained a wrinkle our two, indicating he was much older. Thinking back, Gary knew the dark elves were famous for a matriarchal society and worshipping a mad goddess as well as being evil, the type of people who would happen to summon demons.
They stared at him rather oddly, obviously not too sure what to make of the human that they had just summoned. Since the demon seemed to understand him, he figured he could use their confusion against them.
“Ummh, yeah the demon you ordered is going to be a tad bit late due to a scheduling issue, but I am his assistant, and he would like me to fetch him a nice drink, so which is the way out?”
The young elf pointed him towards a door which he walked out of at pace most people would use for jogging. When he exited the building after running across a few more dark elves, he found himself on a strange and large cave cavern where the ceiling itself was very high, at least three hundred meters above the street. The street itself was made out of dirt and lined with houses made of stone. A few seem to be converted stalagmites and most seemed to be two to three stories high, non-reached the ceiling. It was lit by strips of luminous moss that hung from poles or on the side of houses and gave off a rather eerie blue glow but lit the area rather well. As he walked down the road, a couple of dark elves would give him the odd glance but left him to his own devices.
Their dress was interesting. It seemed they wore the garments that he would class as seventeenth century that included cloaks, ruffle shirts, and bright jackets and shirts that had laces. So far, the dark elves had not taken much notice of him. He regarded this as a good sign, but he knew their repetition from old fantasy games, and he had yet to run into a female. He then saw a wooden sign over a building which had a picture of a glass of beer tipped to its side. He thought he would try his luck and slip inside while he thought of what to do next.
The tavern, at least that’s what he assumed it was, there was a large L shaped bar with a shelf behind it filled with bottles and even a few barrels. There were other long tables in the bar. A few groups sat talking to each other at least till the door opened and Gary stepped in when everyone turned silent and gave him a long look. He awkwardly went up to the bar and reached for the pouch he had swiped and took out a gold coin and looked at the bartender who happened to be a dark elf male who was a rakish figure with a couple of gold earrings, an open breast red shirt with gold lining, and it did not fail to escape Gary’s notice, a belt with a sword on his hip. The bartender gave him a look that indicated he was not happy that Gary had wal
ked into his bar until he looked at the coin on the counter. The bartender picked it up and studied it closely then gave Gary a once over before saying, “Funny, you don’t look like you come from the Dammed Plains. What will it be?”
Gary stared at him. Another small part of his brain asked him why he was able to understand them.
“A coffee, please.”
The bartender gave him another funny look. “What is this coffee?”
Well, he thought to himself. Time to move on to plan B. “A beer, please.”
“What type?” replied the barkeep.
Gary could not help but notice that most of the other patrons had gone back to their drinks but every now and then glanced his way. “Umm, whatever the house would recommend.” He gave a shrug and said it in such a way as to sound slightly more manly then he felt at the moment.
The bartender grabbed a mug and poured him a thick sludge that clung to the side of the glass. The bartender then slid the glass in front of him and dropped four silver coins. Gary knew he was being ripped off, a sort of inbuilt instinct one has from living in London but decided not to push it.
He grabbed his change and left one of the coins in the vain hope that he would be reluctant to knock off a good tipper. He found a nice, empty seat close to the door where he studied the beer with intensity reserved for the discovery of the higgs boson.
Figuring on not taking a chance, he pulled his bag up and looked inside. He had a small torch a pen, a knife, his laptop, and a couple of tools, not exactly survival gear for being underground and trapped in a city of dark elves. Taking a look at the time on his phone, he noticed it was 10 now. He idly wondered if this place did rooms and if there was an extra charge for not being murdered.
Taking a look at his beer again he took in a deep breath and figured he had not much to lose so took a sip and found the flavours rather interesting. It was spicy and tasted vaguely of mushrooms. He looked around the room and noticed a couple of patrons eyeing him and his purse. Oh great, he thought to himself. Here I am in fantasy land and I am about to be mugged,. There is no way this is real. I must have tripped and am in a coma. Suddenly the door flung open and in entered a tall, dark elf female with flowing, white hair, and she was wearing what Gary would call a strapless evening gown which happened to be white, and way too fancy for a place like this.