The Rise of Greg

by Chris Rylander

  “Lest couldst be’est ye mislaid Estoc of Galdadroona,” Lake said excitedly. “Per ye Legend of Sir Darormir Beardsbane.”

  Ari and the three Sentry nodded thoughtfully. This was clearly another story they’d all grown up hearing time and again as children in Dwarven culture.

  “Okay, fine.” I sighed. “I’ll bite: What’s the legend of Dramamine What’s-His-Beard, then?”

  “Sir Darormir Beardsbane was a Knight of the Cerulean Tooth from Galdadroona”—Ari began what was sure to be a long and ridiculous story—“a region in the Southeast Shire of Separate Earth, known for producing the best swords in the world. Anyway, he got drunk one night at a tavern in Malconia called the Foamy Dessert Pub and lost his prized possession: his sword. It was rumored that a rival knight from the Order of the Gray Finger found it and lodged it in a stone nearby as a joke. Darormir spent the rest of his life searching for his sword, but to no avail.”

  I waited for more, but Ari simply shrugged.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Yeah, what were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Some long yarn about betrayal and revenge that ends with a wizard embedding an enchanted sword in a magical stone until some prophesied, special Chosen One can come free it and save the world from a Dark Ice Lord named Zamboni?”

  “Heh,” Glam snickered. “That sounds more like the Tale of the Treacherous Quest of Progtail Orcheart! You’ve heard that one, then?”

  “No!” I said. “No, not at all, I just . . . I mean, how many old tales are there that involve swords stuck in rocks?”

  “Well, that depends. Are we only counting broadswords, longswords, estocs, and shortswords?” Glam asked. “Or are we also including rapiers, katanas, and Ulfberhts?”

  “Also, what’s your definition of a rock?” Ari asked. “Because in at least a few of them, it’s a bridge or a castle wall . . .”

  “You know what?” I said, giving up on fantasy tales altogether. “Never mind. I don’t even want to know, and it doesn’t matter. But anyway . . . if this is Darormir’s long-lost sword, how would we know? If there are that many tales, why would you assume this sword in the stone is that one, and not one of the apparently four hundred others?”

  “Swords from Galdadroona were exceptionally rare,” Ari said. “The whole region only had two armory blacksmiths. Only one hundred and fifty swords were ever made using Galdadroona steel. Thus, just two of the sword-in-the-stone tales involve Galdadroona steel. This appears to be one of them, if the legends about Galdadroona steel never rusting are true . . .”

  The blade should have been rusty; I’d give them that. Even after just a few months out in the elements, most steel showed at least some wear.

  “Is there any way to be sure the sword is from Galdrooney or wherever?” I asked.

  “Galdadroona swords are said to have a stamp halfway to the tip,” Ari said.

  “Ye emblem ye skilled artisan,” Lake added.

  “Okay, then,” I said sarcastically. “Welp, should we try to pull it free, to see if this is it? A legendary powerful sword just sitting here conveniently for us to find?”

  “Geez, Greg, try to be a little more positive,” Glam said.

  “Or thankful,” Ari agreed, but they were both grinning.

  Most important, nobody said not to try to pull the sword free. And so I put a hand around the exposed hilt. It felt cold and rough, and not at all like anything more than just a normal sword lodged in a stone.

  I gave a pull, but the sword didn’t budge.

  “Come on, put some muscle into it, buttercup!” Glam taunted.

  I laughed and wrapped my other hand around the hilt and put a foot on the boulder to try to get more leverage. I tensed all my muscles and pulled as hard as I could, using my leg to help. The thing wasn’t budging. My hands slipped off the hilt, and I went sprawling backward into the dirt.

  “Well,” I said, as my friends tried their best to stifle their laughter, “I guess I’m not the Chosen One of this sword’s prophecy or legend or whatever.”

  Lake helped me to my feet as Glam scoffed and stepped up to the boulder, cracking her knuckles loudly. After tugging at the sword and swearing for the better part of five minutes, she finally gave up as well.

  “Maybe it’s in there for a reason,” Ari suggested. “And not meant to be freed.”

  “Or you could just have that thing pull it free,” one of the Sentry said, pointing at Stoney.

  It had been obvious, throughout this entire journey, that the Sentry didn’t like or trust Stoney. And if it weren’t for the fact that his knowledge was vital to the mission, they would surely have tossed him overboard that very first night at sea.

  “Want to give it a try, Stoney?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  We guided him over to the stone. He ran his hands along the surface of the boulder and along the hilt of the sword. At one point, he even bent down to sniff the rock.

  “ESTOC INFILTRATE BONINITE BASALT IMPECCABLE VENEER,” he said. “OBLITERATE FUNDAMENTAL LUSTER. ABERRANT FEATURE.”

  Stoney pinched the tiny (to him) hilt between his thumb and forefinger. Then, as easily as if he were plucking a toothpick from a jar, he pulled the blade free from the stone.

  He held it out.

  It was a pretty standard two-handed estoc sword, though perhaps shorter and thicker than most. It had been relatively well preserved by the rock surrounding it, but otherwise it appeared to be nothing more than a finely crafted, but unexciting, run-of-the-mill sword. There were no markings on the blade, so it was not Sir Darormir’s sword from the legend, or apparently from Galdadroona at all.

  But it would still serve me pretty well as a new weapon, assuming Ari could restore the hilt with leather or wood.

  “Who farted?” Glam blurted out as I examined the sword.

  I hadn’t noticed the smell at first, but now that she’d said something, I had to admit it did suddenly reek near the boulder. Everyone covered their faces with their shirts, jackets, and tunics. Even Stoney was gagging, which sounded like a bucket of rocks being shaken up.

  “Seriously, who did that?” Ari asked, shooting her twin brother an accusatory glance.

  But nobody owned up to it.

  That was when I noticed the goop oozing up from the hole in the boulder left by the sword. The thick brown-and-green paste bubbling up out of the stone was clearly the source of the unbearable stench. It spilled to the side and slithered down the boulder. It pooled at the base in a steaming pile of slime so thick you could have molded it like clay.

  “Ugh!” Ari shouted, taking a step back. “What is that stuff?”

  “It can’t be poo, can it?” Glam asked as we all took several steps back.

  “Stoney?” I asked, since he was somewhat of an expert on minerals.

  He gagged again and shook his huge, craggy head, clearly as baffled as the rest of us. Likely even more so, since he couldn’t actually see.

  The goo continued oozing from the sword hole and glopping down the side of the boulder. We watched in horror as the pile on the ground grew to nearly the size of a large beanbag chair, four feet high and four feet across.

  And then, just as suddenly as the strange substance had started oozing out, it stopped.

  The last bits of brownish-green pus gushed from the hole, ran down the side of the boulder, and plopped onto the massive mound of gloop. It didn’t leave behind a single drop, nor any residue on the rock. I didn’t need to be a geologist to know that wasn’t natural.

  Whatever this was, it was purely of Separate Earth’s world and not our own.

  Then the blob began moving on its own.

  We all took two steps back, and the Sentry drew their weapons as the smelly pile of goo rolled and folded itself, forming a rough sphere at the base of the boulder. The shades of brown
and green morphed and separated as the surface of the blob rippled like it was taking in its surroundings.

  What had we just unwittingly unleashed?

  “It’s . . . it’s alive . . .” Ari said weakly.

  Nobody responded.

  At least none of us responded.

  Because, after a short silence, the blob spoke.

  And it spoke perfect English (go figure).

  CHAPTER 18

  Blob Blog Globbenblog

  Ahhhhhh!” the blob cried out in a relieved, masculine voice. “That feels soooo nice! Do you know how long I’ve been trapped in there?”

  Nobody replied. We all just gaped at the pulsating mound of disgusting goo, which, by the way, didn’t smell any better now that it had been out in the fresh forest air for several minutes.

  “No, I mean, do you actually know how long?” the blob asked, rolling toward us a couple of feet. We all instinctively took a few more steps back. “After the first few hours, it became hard to judge the passing of time!”

  More awkward silence followed, and the blob rippled, seeming to deflate a little bit.

  “Umm, hi?” I finally said.

  “Oh!” it said. “So you can understand me? I wasn’t sure if I was saying it right. I haven’t spoken the Plain Tongue in a while. Thought maybe I was a bit rusty!”

  “You . . . you speak more languages?” Ari asked.

  “Of course!” the blob answered. “Only selfish, insular dolts don’t bother to expand past their one native language, no?”

  We all kind of shuffled our feet uncomfortably. Aside from Stoney, none of us spoke anything but English,* or, in Lake’s case, the English version of Ancient Dwarven, which in reality was a lot more like regular English than like real, actual Ancient Dwarven.

  “Oh . . . oh, I see,” the blob said. “Well, I’m sorry. I sort of pegged you lot as a bit more enlightened. But that’s fine. That’s okay. No reason we can’t still be pals! Right?”

  As it spoke, it rolled toward us again. The festering stench was nearly overwhelming. Several of us stepped back, but I did my best to stay in place, not wanting to offend this thing . . . whatever it was.

  “Right,” I finally answered weakly. “Pals. My name is Greggdroule Stormbelly. This is Ari, Glam, Lake, Froggy, Stoney, Tiki, and these three with the weapons drawn are the Sentry. But they mean you no harm. They’re our security detail, so they have to be extra cautious, you see.”

  “Ah, indeed!” the blob replied, rather cheerily for a creature with an ax, a sword, and a mace pointed at it. “Caution is the cousin to survival, after all. My name is blaaaarfffttt.” The noise it emitted sounded like a kid stomping in the mud with big rain boots on. “Though, no doubt your unsophisticated and primitive tongues cannot pronounce that, so you can just call me Blob Blog Globbenblog. Or just Blob for short, if you wish, as my old master used to.”

  “Master?” Ari asked. “You were . . . owned by someone?”

  “Well, technically, yes,” Blob replied. “But I like to consider us more symbiotic friends, rather than associates of a proprietorial sort of relationship.”

  “What happened to your old master—er, uh, friend?” I asked.

  Blob deflated slightly, then rolled to the right and back again, as if nervously shuffling its “feet.”

  “I don’t know,” he finally said. “He was quite displeased with me at the time we parted. In fact, he was always unhappy with me. Rightly so, too, for I am nothing but a worthless pile of feces. Not literally, of course. But this is what he always told me. I am not a good servant. I am not a good companion. I tried and tried to please him, to serve him well, but alas, I always failed . . . failed rather spectacularly, if I might add . . .”

  Blob’s voice had become strained, and his gooey mass was dripping a yellow liquid all over the ground in what I can only imagine (or hope) was his version of crying. Either way, it only amplified his stench in ways I couldn’t possibly describe without offending nearly everyone reading this story.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ari said. “Your old master sounds so mean . . .”

  “Oh, no, no!” Blob said suddenly, lunging forward so quickly that Ari almost fell over trying to get away. “No, no, no, no. Don’t ever speak poorly of Master. He was a great man. Wise and noble. The wisest and noblest creature who ever lived! I would have died for him! Still would, if he were here . . . though I’m sure I’d fail at that task, too, somehow . . .”

  “Oh,” Ari said. “Sorry . . .”

  “We’re wasting time,” Sentry One interjected. “Let’s dispatch of this thing and move on, shall we?”

  While I didn’t agree with her sentiment exactly, I did have to admit that we were wasting a lot of valuable time. We needed to press on. We couldn’t forget that Edwin had a pretty significant head start.

  “Blob, we definitely mean you no harm,” I said, shooting Sentry One an annoyed glance. “But we must indeed continue our journey now. It was nice to meet you, though.”

  “Wait! Can I not come along on your adventures?” Blob asked, rolling toward me, the stink almost making me choke. “I am a wonderful companion. And can provide many helpful services . . . or, well, I will at least try my best.”

  I took a subtle step back and glanced at my companions. I could see in their expressions and shaking heads that nobody wanted this smelly, sort-of-annoying, poo-booger-blob to come with us on the journey.

  “Um, well, see, it’s a pretty dangerous mission,” I said. “And I wouldn’t want you to get hurt or anything . . .”

  “It’s the smell, isn’t it?” Blob asked. He rolled in a tight circle and shrank back against the boulder. “I’ve heard people speaking about my aroma before.”

  “No, no, I mean, that’s not it . . .” I said. “What, what smell?”

  “You don’t have to lie,” Blob said. “I’m not stupid. But I can’t help it. That’s just the by-product of how I consume the energy within the materials around me. I either smell this way or die. What am I supposed to do? Would you rather I die? Because if so, I will certainly acquiesce here and now . . .”

  I felt horrible.

  Were we really going to make an outcast out of this thing just because it had a smell that didn’t fit with what we’d always considered pleasant? I mean, his musk was nearly suffocating (like a combination of rotten eggs, the Souper Bowl, old diapers, spoiled milk, and vinegar), but it still didn’t seem fair to leave him behind because of something totally outside his control.

  “Okay,” I said. “You may join us.”

  “Greg, no!” Sentry Five whined.

  “Blob is joining us!” I said louder. “But I want you to know, Blob, that this is a dangerous mission. You may—we all may—perish. You accept that risk?”

  “Of course!” Blob said, clearly excited. “Yes. Yes, I will do what I can to help. You know, my old master once said that I was about as helpful as paraplegic mule, and though I don’t know what a mule is, or what paraplegic means, I can only assume it is something of great assistance in times of danger!”

  Ari and Lake shot me a look. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, wondering what on earth I had just done. But I was going to stand by the decision. We did not have the right to discriminate against this creature based on his smell or appearance or general annoyance levels. At least Stoney seemed to be on my side.

  “WELCOME!” he bellowed down in the general direction of the blob of pus and goo. “AGREEABLE CONVOKING ACQUAINTANCE!”

  “Likewise!” Blob said. “I’ve never met a stack of talking rocks before! I mean, hah, now I’ve seen everything! No, I mean, literally everything. I bet there’s nothing left in this world I have not witnessed, aside from a mule, now that I have met a talking mound of stones.”

  “Okay, then, yes,” I said, interrupting his babble. “Onward, Stoney?”

  Stoney nodded and contin
ued walking in the direction we’d been heading all day. As I strapped my new sword to my belt, I wondered if finally getting a suitable replacement weapon would be worth the addition of the slimeball it had unwittingly unleashed.

  But, as with most things of such an unusual nature, only time would tell.

  CHAPTER 19

  The Time Sir Wylymot the Agile Got Flattened Like a Bug

  Unfortunately, it didn’t take very long to discover that Blob never shut up.

  In fact, as we walked, I began to speculate about all the totally valid reasons he might have been sealed inside that stone for who knew how many years. But to be fair, even as he regaled us with long and often pointless tales about things like all the many uses for a bucket, or the surprising variety of moods pill bugs experience, he did seem generally harmless and eager to please.

  Not that it completely made up for the constant chatter. Or the stench that, for some reason, we never got accustomed to. Each time a whiff of his distinctly ripe stink hit your nose it was like you were smelling it for the first time all over again.

  But Froggy eventually took one for the team and fell back alongside Blob, encouraging his stories with an endless series of interested nods. It was just the sort of quietly noble thing Froggy was becoming known for. He even slowed his pace so they were the last two in line. It mostly kept Blob’s stench away from the rest of us, barring a shift in the wind.

  At the front of the pack, Ari, Glam, and I walked side by side, a few paces behind Stoney, who was in the lead with his walking stick slapping the ground in front of him.

  “So I’ve been meaning to ask, now that we’re getting closer,” Ari said, “what happens when we find the amulet? If we find it . . .”

  I was about to tell her: Well, to beat Edwin to it of course! But I realized that didn’t really answer her question.

  “Yeah, I’ve been wondering that, too,” Glam said. “I mean, we all know the goal is to get the amulet before Edwin does, so we can stop him from banishing magic and all that. But . . . then what? If we get the amulet first, what will we actually do with something so powerful?”