Comedic Fantasy Bundle #1: 4 Hilarious Adventures (Tales from the land of Ononokin)

by John P. Logsdon

  Paulie felt his shoulders drop. As that little gnome Clicker would have said, he was busted.

  “Good on you, lad,” the dwarf said, slapping the table and laughing. “That other fella, though…who’s he?”

  “He’s an assassin.”

  “I knew he was the first part of that word, just didn’t know he was the entire word.”

  “Right,” Paulie said. “Well, he’s going to come after us.”

  The dwarf held up his hands. “That’s all I need to know,” he said. “The less I know, the less I can blab and lemme tell ye that I have a tendency to flap my gums when I ought not.”

  “Okay, well, let me pay you.”

  “No, no. I’m in good with them Noble Trolls of Liberty fellas. Besides, you ain’t the one that brought that doggy in, now is ye?” The dwarf giggled menacingly. “I’ll get the fifty dollars out of that other fella.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “‘Course I am. Now, ye say he’s gonna get after ye, yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ye going to Yezan, yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me give you something.” The dwarf ran into the back room for a minute. “Here it is,” he said while handing a clear bottle to Paulie.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s something you can use to protect yourself, should the need arise,” said the dwarf.

  Paulie looked at the bottle. “How?”

  “Let’s just say that if ye get to Yezan and the doggies are around—”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean to say that them things is in werewolf form.”

  “Ah.”

  “Anyway, if that Bumache fella comes after you, just crack this on his head or dump it on him.”

  “Why?”

  The dwarf just shook his head and grinned. “You’ll see.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just do it and everything will be fine, yeah?”

  “If you say so,” Paulie said.

  “I do,” said the dwarf. “Also, take a couple of snacks for your werepup there, and a tennis ball too.”

  “A tennis ball?”

  “Dogs like to play, don’t they?”

  “Yes, I suppose they do,” Paulie replied with a smile. “Thank you for helping us. I know that in his current form, Mr. Biscuits—”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, right, you know him as Captain Pooper,” Paulie said with a shrug. “His real name is Mr. Biscuits. Anyway, were he in non-wolf form he would thank you too.”

  “Bah, bah,” said the dwarf as he pushed them back out of the building. “I don’t need none of that mushy gushy talk in here. Get on with ye and keep that potion handy.”

  DOGGONE

  Stelan’s alarm sounded at five in the morning.

  He was not happy.

  His was a life of late nights, not early mornings.

  By the time he had gotten washed up and checked out it was nearly six. Sunrise was imminent so he picked up his pace to get to the kennel. The last thing he needed was for Hughbarian to turn into his non-wolf form while in a cage. The man would never trust Stelan if that happened.

  The dwarf was just flipping on the “open” sign as Stelan grabbed the door handle.

  “Good morning,” the dwarf said.

  “I’ll agree with the ‘morning’ part of that statement,” Stelan replied. “Here to pick up my dog.”

  “Name?”

  “Stelan Bumache.”

  “No, the dog’s name.”

  Stelan knew that he’d given some derogatory name to the mutt, but he couldn’t recall what it was. He looked up to his left as he fished around for the name. All he could remember was that he used a military title.

  “Admiral Dumper,” Stelan said matter-of-factly.

  “No dogs after that name on the list,” the dwarf said.

  “Lieutenant Logdropper?”

  “Nope.”

  “Lieutenant LoadLauncher?”

  “Not in the Lieutenant class at all.”

  “Ah. Maybe it’s Sergeant Shi—”

  “You don’t know your own dog’s name?” the dwarf interrupted.

  “As I explained when I dropped him off,” Stelan responded, “he’s not my dog. I’m merely watching him for a friend.”

  “Oh yeah,” the gruffy little dwarf said as he ran his fingers down the list, “I’m after remembering you now.” The dwarf pointed at Stelan. “Captain Pooper, I believe?”

  Stelan straightened up and furrowed his brow. “Well, I’ve never been so insulted. I’ve already told you that my name is Stelan Bumache, thank you very much.”

  “Huh?” the dwarf said, scrunching his face. “Oh! No! The dog’s name is Captain Pooper.”

  “Oh, yes. That sounds about right.”

  “That’ll be fifty dollars.”

  Stelan pulled out a $100 bill and laid it on the table.

  “Don’t got change for no hundred, mister.”

  “Keep it,” Stelan said.

  The dwarf took the money and put it in his drawer. Then he scratched his head and sat down and started writing something out. Stelan assumed it was paperwork of some sort.

  He took to looking around at the leashes and animal gadgets while he waited. At first he thought it may be a good idea to grab a toy or something to keep the mutt entertained, but with the sun coming up at any moment it wouldn’t likely prove necessary. He looked at his watch and began to worry.

  “Will he be out soon?” Stelan asked.

  “Who?”

  “My dog.”

  “You okay, mister?” the dwarf asked.

  “Of course I’m okay. I just paid you one hundred dollars and now I need my dog so I can go.”

  “Your dog’s already gone,” the dwarf said. “Your servant came in and picked him up. Said you weren’t after getting up all that early. Said you’d come down to pay for everything, which you did.”

  “My servant?”

  “You said you was Stinky Bumtush, right?”

  “Stelan Bumache,” Stelan said through clenched teeth.

  The dwarf shrugged. “I’m better with dog names.”

  “This servant of mine didn’t happen to be a vampire, did he?”

  “You’d think ye’d remember your own servant. Maybe you’re just after watching him for a friend too?”

  “What time did my ‘servant,’” Stelan quoted the word with his fingers, “pick up Captain Crapper?”

  “Captain Pooper.”

  “Whatever. What time?”

  “If he’s your servant, then you should already know what time he was here.”

  “He isn’t really my servant, you dolt!”

  “Oh,” the dwarf replied, “that changes everything. If he’s not your servant than I guess he kidnapped your dog?”

  “Right,” Stelan said, pointing at the dwarf, “that’s it!”

  “Then I’ll have to contact the authorities.”

  “Good, good. So what time did he leave?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” informed the dwarf. “That’d go against the investigation rules of the Gakoonk police department.”

  Stelan leaned on the counter, resting his head in his palm. That vampire had seemed so harmless, and he didn’t appear all that bright either. The assassin of the Yezanian Empire, standing inside a kennel at a posh hotel in Gakoonk, had been duped.

  “I should have killed him when I had the chance,” Stelan said to the dwarf.

  “Not my business what you do, mister.”

  Stelan left the kennel, sprinting off toward the portal system.

  Day was breaking and the sound of birds and little creatures started their morning song. He envied their little lives. Go to sleep, wake up, sing a bit, hunt, and repeat. A primal existence was their lot.

  He should have known better than to think that Paulie character was as gullible as he had seemed. That vampire had known about the ransom offer all along. He was probably already up in Argan co
llecting the reward.

  But wait, Stelan thought. Maybe not.

  Argan wasn’t going to just let some vampire into their kingdom, and with Argan being on the western side of the continent, it would still be dark up there too, so the prince would still be in werepup mode.

  This was perfect.

  Bumache would arrive at the portal in Argan to find the vampire and werepup in the clutches of the guards. He would then convince the guards that he had sent them ahead because he didn’t want to risk having any of his molecules getting mixed with any of their kind during transport. That couldn’t actually happen, Stelan knew, but the guards in the Upperworld wouldn’t know that. Then he would meet the king, twist the story of the vampire, explain the situation with the prince and collect the reward, and finally watch the vampire get dragged away to face charges for illegally crossing into the Upperworld.

  Stelan smiled to himself. To think that he actually made the leap that a pathetic little vampire could have outwitted him. How humorous.

  “Destination?” said the troll clerk at the portal.

  “Aopow Station,” Stelan said, flipping his weapons box onto the table.

  Another thought hit him. After he collected his reward for the prince, and then collected the payment for killing the prince a few weeks later, he would convince King Larkin that Paulie Vergen knew about how Larkin had put a bounty on the head of the prince of Argan. So the king of Yezan would pay Stelan to fix the issue of Mr. Vergen knowing too much. It was instinctual.

  Stelan would get yet another payday.

  It was brilliant.

  He landed in Aopow Station and looked around. It was dingy and unkempt. Of all the stations in the belt, it was by far the worst. Aopow was also the only self-service portal system.

  Stelan checked the map, dialed in the numbers, and hit the button.

  He looked up once more at Aopow Station, just as the world began to fade away, and he saw Mr. Biscuits standing about 20 feet away, and then he began to seethe in rage.

  AOPOW STATION

  On the plus side, the station wasn’t crawling with security guards looking to charge Paulie for every “accident” that Mr. Biscuits had. On the negative side, the only thing keeping the scrags from mugging Paulie was that he had a werepup.

  He and Mr. Biscuits had been hiding in the shadows in Aopow for the last couple of hours as they waited for the sun to come up in Yezan.

  Paulie had grabbed what he assumed was an egg sandwich about an hour back, and his stomach hadn’t been right since. He could have attributed that to nerves except that Mr. Biscuits ate half of it too and then had left a couple of gifts in one of the tunnels.

  “We should get back to the portal, Mr. Biscuits,” Paulie said, patting the werepup’s head.

  Mr. Biscuits got to his feet, shook himself, did a downward werepup stretch for a few seconds, then an upward werepup, and then looked at Paulie.

  Most of the shops were still closed this early in the morning, but the shopkeepers could be seen busily preparing for the day. There were a few places Paulie found interesting, especially as it related to plasma-based products. He decided that, at some point, he would have to come back through and make a day of it.

  A scrag passed him, looked at the werepup, grimaced, and kept going.

  Paulie changed his future plan to instead visit Yergarn Station. There were higher-quality shops and guards there. The prices were higher in Yergarn, but it was hard to put a price on safety. Paulie would just have to deal with the markups.

  They turned the final corner and walked inside the cavernous portal room. There were only a few travelers standing at the portals, but one of them looked eerily familiar.

  It was Stelan Bumache.

  Paulie quickly jumped back into the shadows.

  In so doing, Mr. Biscuits’ leash slipped off his hand and dropped to the ground.

  Mr. Biscuits was clearly oblivious to this fact as he kept right on walking toward the portals. In fact, he was making his way directly toward Bumache.

  “Mr. Biscuits,” Paulie called in as loud a whisper as he could muster.

  Mr. Biscuits stopped.

  Paulie held his breath as Bumache appeared to be entering in a portal sequence.

  Don’t look up! Don’t look up!

  Bumache looked up.

  “Mr. Biscuits,” Paulie raced over to the dog, “I’m pretty sure Bumache just saw you.”

  Paulie sighed.

  “I told him how important it was for you to get to Yezan so you can get your memory back. That means he’ll be waiting for us when we get there. I don’t know which is worse, running into an assassin or running into a bunch of werewolves. I guess they both end the same way.”

  ANOTHER MISS

  Stelan arrived at Argan Station. He took a quick look around to see if there were any guards or portal operators present. There were none in the immediate area.

  With any luck, nobody would bother him while the portal recharged, and then he could jump back to Aopow and then off to Yezan to stop that blasted vampire before it was too late.

  The problem was that Stelan had no idea how long this particular portal would take to recharge. It depended on a number of factors, but mostly on the level of power that was being fed to it. They were all different in the Upperworld.

  In order to find out, he would have to do a little studying, so he took a look around.

  He was standing in a large room that was poorly lit. It had rough walls that were of a brownish hue with jagged stones sticking out in haphazard angles. If he were to make a guess, he’d say that he was in the bottom of a cave.

  Two steps off the platform he spotted the bottom of a winding staircase made of stone.

  That confirmed the cave theory.

  “Who’s down there?” a booming male voice demanded from atop the stairway.

  Damn, Stelan thought, backing away from the bottom of the steps.

  He doubted anyone had seen him, but there was now no doubt that he had company.

  “What did they say?” another, somewhat shaky voice asked.

  “Didn’t get no answer.”

  “So go and look.”

  “You go and look.”

  “I’m the ranking guard on duty,” the shaky voice said. “That makes me your boss.”

  “I’m bigger than you,” replied the booming voice. “That makes me able to punch a hole in your head.”

  “Okay, okay,” Shaky said. “I’ll go look.”

  Stelan had a few options.

  He could play the diplomatic card, acting aristocratic and demanding that they allow him into the city to speak with the consulate. He immediately dismissed that option, realizing he didn’t have the time.

  “I’ve got a sword, I do,” Shaky voice said, clacking lightly on the steps.

  Stelan thought about possibly playing dumb. He could explain that he made an error while typing on the keypad in Aopow and ended up here. They would ask why he didn’t answer when they called down, assuming they had any sense at all, of course. That was easily explained away that he was temporarily confused about where he was and therefore wasn’t processing external information all that well.

  “It’s a rather sharp sword.”

  But his ire was up and he could tell by the voice approaching that the guard coming down to check him out was no match for the likes of Yezan’s key assassin.

  Stelan needed a bit of aggressive release.

  He pulled out his PortaZap and pressed his back against the wall.

  “I hear that swords hurt pretty bad when they stick in ya,” Shaky said as the tip of the sword came into view.

  One more step and then Stelan lunged out and jabbed the PortaZap against the guard’s neck. He convulsed immediately and then dropped to the ground, his sword clanging in the process.

  “Bernie?” called the booming voice from the top of the steps. “What happened?”

  “Just dropped me sword,” Stelan called back up in his best Bernie impersonation
.

  “You sound funny,” the guard upstairs observed, “and you forgot to shut the door.”

  Stelan heard footsteps. He took the stairs two at a time, and launched a ZapDisc through the still-opened door. An instant later there was a static sound, a flash of light, and the thumping of a body.

  Two guards down.

  Hopefully that was it.

  Stelan finished his ascent and looked through the slat in the door that opened to an anteroom. He surmised the layout. The portal was at the bottom with guards posted up top. The slat was obviously for communications and also for handling paperwork and passports.

  What a cushy job that must have been for the guards. Sit around all day, or night, as the case may be, wait for probably nothing to happen, and then take the rest of the day off. Even commonly used portal stations in the Upperworld were very low volume when compared to the least used ones in the Underworld.

  Stelan thought of an immediate issue.

  It was getting near morning, which is usually when shift changes happened. At some point a couple of new guards were going to come in. Stelan had to be gone before that happened.

  He wasn’t worried about these two waking up anytime soon. Zap devices could knock an ogre out for the better part of an hour, so these guards had at least an hour of sleep before they came around.

  Stelan pushed through the door and gave the guard a solid kick to the buttocks. He had no reason for it other than it gave him pleasure to do so.

  Moving to the table, he checked the records. It showed that the shift change wasn’t for another couple of hours. That was good, at least.

  He couldn’t find any documentation on the portal itself, so the recharge duration could be any…He stopped as a glowing light caught his eye. He pushed the door closed and found a counter that said how much time was left on the portal before it was ready again. Only a few minutes left.

  Ah, the joys of technology.

  Most of the Upperworld was against technological things, but the portal hubs of some cities had to keep with the times, even if only minimally.

  Stelan returned to the table to see if there was any additional information he could gather about the station. It was still in his plan to return here once he’d killed off that damnable vampire and had taken custody of the prince, so knowing a little about the procedures would be helpful.