Fantasy Online Polynya

by Harmon Cooper

  “But we have a Thulean in our guild.”

  She winks. “I excel at test taking, so I wrote what he wanted to hear. There was also a question on who you voted for during the last Tritanian election. I played it safe there and said I sat that one out. Let me see … oh yes! There was another question about my opinion of goblins, harems, and a question about my opinions on healthy heads of hair. That one was odd.”

  “He actually made you fill all that out?”

  She touches Ryuk lightly on the shoulder, sending a spark down his arm. “It’s fine, I did it so I could join you guys and he can’t claim that I wasn’t vetted.”

  “I’m sure he’ll figure out another way to hate you.”

  She shrugs. “Maybe, but I think he means well. He really seems to like you.”

  “Like me?” Ryuk starts to shake his head.

  “Yeah, I think he just gives you a hard time.”

  Ryuk hits the deck at the sound of machine gun fire. He glances to see FeeTwix standing with one of his shooting irons, the receiving end smoking. “Sorry, everyone! Just needed to get your attention.”

  “Fick me, Twixy, you do that shit again and you’ll be sorry!” Hiccup shouts from behind a rock.

  Wolf barks wildly.

  “The mutt agrees!”

  “Mitherfickers gather ‘round, I have a gift from a fan.” As they gather, FeeTwix produces a small medicine bottle. “This, my friends, is a bottle of Fat Tony’s Go Juice!”

  “Fat Tony’s what?” The goblin looks from the Swede to Ryuk.

  “It was delivered to me by an EBAYmazon dragon.”

  “When?” Hiccup asks. “I haven’t seen any dragons!”

  “You were snoozing when it came. Anyway, this stuff will give us times 1.5 EXP for the next six hours, plenty of time to get through the catacombs.” FeeTwix takes a small quaff from the bottle. A green light slithers up his arms and legs, forms a halo over his head, and disappears. “So drink up!” He tosses the little bottle to Ryuk. “It’s time to kick some ass!”

  To prove his point, FeeTwix charges forward, the first one into the catacombs.

  (0)__(x)

  The catacombs are surprisingly damp. Cold too, Ryuk thinks after they’ve been inside for a few minutes. They’ve already moved from a cave to a large clearing big enough for a land dragon to nap.

  Hiccup is at the back of the group, Wolf and Zaena at the front, and Ryuk is keenly aware that the goblin is close enough to him to jump into his arms if need be.

  “It could be a ghost,” Zaena says.

  “Gee fick, Liz, you know that’s my trigger word.” Hiccup steels himself. “Not scared – hungry as a fickin’ tardigrade, though.”

  “You just ate,” she tells him.

  “Yeah, but that was more of an appetizer.”

  “I believe we were delivered three kilos of meat and you ate two,” FeeTwix adds.

  “Like I said, appetizer.” The goblin looks around at the large, open space before them. “You know, this place wouldn’t be too bad for the upcoming Cave Edition of Wet Goblin Holes. I should write to the editor.”

  A bat flies past and Hiccup shrieks.

  “Easy,” FeeTwix says. “It won’t take us long to get there now that we have a handy dandy map!” A backlit map appears in the air and twinkles out of existence. “Thanks goes out to Jack S. for his stunning cartographer prowess! If you need a map of a cave, dungeon – or hell, some of the flea markets in Hyperborea – look no further than Jack!”

  Hiccup groans and Wolf makes a noise that sounds like a groan.

  “Is he fickin’ mocking me?”

  Ryuk laughs. “It sounds like it.”

  Wolf starts sniffing the path up ahead. Once he’s sniffed off into the wall of the catacomb, he lifts his legs and takes a long, splashy piss.

  “You think he could have done that back there,” Hiccup says with a cringe.

  “Since when did you start hating the smell of piss?” Zaena asks. “I thought goblin mothers bathed their babies in piss to ward off ticks.”

  “They do, and goblin piss smells way fickin’ nicer than Wolf piss, believe you me, Liz-tard. If you want proof, next time I need to drain the chalupa I can do so in your general direction.”

  “I like you, goblin, I do, but if you value your chalupa, you will never, and I mean never, pull it out in any way that I could see it, even if by accident. If you haven’t already noticed, I’m very fast with my swords.”

  Wolf barks and runs ahead into a room with a low ceiling. He emerges seconds later, an imp gripped tightly in his jaw. He snaps the creature’s neck, Instakill!, and shakes what’s left of the life out of it.

  “Fick yeah!” A shield shaped like a triangle appears in Hiccup’s brass hand, his spiked club in his other. “It’s imp-killing time!” he shouts as dozens of tiny, devilish creatures crawl out of holes at the top of the big opening.

  -169 HP! Critical hit!

  Ryuk pings one of the imps with an explosive marble, sending a chunk of its shoulder and wing flipping into the air. More imps pour out of holes in the ceiling, cackling and screeching as they dance around. There are too many to tell their levels, but seeing how easy it is to kill them dead, Ryuk assumes they’re all around level seven.

  Phwwoom!

  FeeTwix’s double-bladed sword is already off its hilt, the rotating blades slicing through the imps and spritzing the air with blackened blood. Zaena is his back up act, her blades a flurry of metal death as she minces, stabs, and filets anything with wings, a devil’s tail, and a scowl on its face.

  Damn! Ryuk thinks as he watches Wolf leap through the air, take out two imps just by landing on them, and lunge for another.

  Insta-Instakill!

  Hiccup is clobbering imps likes he’s auditioning for a part as The Thing; he pauses once, just in time to bash an imp with his triangle shield. Ryuk sees an imp coming at the goblin from behind and his Extreme Focus skill takes over.

  Instakill!

  He pegs the imp between the eyes with a molten marble and it falls backwards, dead before it hits the ground.

  Hiccup shoots Ryuk a thumbs up, winks in a way that makes him feel a bit uncomfortable, licks his lips, and gets back to fighting imps. Once he clears a few out, his shield momentarily disappears and a healing potion takes shape in his grubby paw.

  He throws it back, finishes it, wipes his lips, and tosses the empty bottle at an incoming imp. The goblin uses the non-spiky end of his club to scratch his ass and then charges back into the fight.

  A big black form moves in front of Ryuk as Wolf leaps to take out another imp.

  Ryuk again realizes the problem with his weapon – range – and the fact that it’s easier for him to be further back if he really wants to get a shot off. To accomplish this, he moves through the fight, his Extreme Focus turned up to eleven, and gets into a position south of where the main fighting is taking place.

  He aims his Marble Gun, focuses his breath, and starts popping explosive and molten marbles at the imps raining down from the ceiling. The fuckers are everywhere, giggling, crying out, lashing their tails at the Mitherfickers as they try to scratch them with their sharp claws.

  -166 HP! Critical hit!

  FeeTwix’s blades whirl around in the air overhead, taking out anything that makes the unfortunate mistake of getting in their trajectory.

  After growing bored with this attack, the famous Swedish gamer equips a golf club and tees off at the nearest imp. He bashes, bangs, and once he finishes his double eagle, he tosses the club over his head and goes for his Glock, which was conveniently tucked into the back of his pants. The ends of his overcoat flicker in the air as the Swede does the patented dive and shoot.

  Insta-Insta-Instakill!

  Spent shells zip through the air as he lands with a sweet, clearly mastered, roll. Once he’s up, FeeTwix pistol-whips the living shit out of a purple imp with a white Thulean tattoo across its back, and sends the little bastard flying into Zaena’s waiting blades. I
nstakill! Bifurcated, the top of the imp flies left, the bottom flies to the right.

  “Level up!” FeeTwix announces. “Fuck yeah, people, up to two million! Gotta do this … ” He shoots another imp and the bullet passes through the little monster into the wing of another. “Okay, everyone, now that I have your attention. You won’t believe the sale that EBAYmazon is having right now on adult novelty toys! Now, I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of what they have … Fuck you, imp!”

  FeeTwix elbows an imp in the face, sending its teeth flying. He doubles back with a pair of brass knuckles, takes the imp to the ground, and finishes the job MMA style. “Whew!” He wipes his brow. “Where was I? Ha! I practically have early Goblinheimer’s, am I right?”

  “Fick you, Twixy!” Hiccup bashes an imp with his spiked club.

  “Ah yes, novelty toys!” The Swede’s slice bang appears in his hand and he comes up and takes an imp’s head off. Instakill! “Damn right that’s an instakill!” he says, slightly out of breath. “So, adult novelty toys. People, you know you want them, and hell, if you need them, you need them. No shame! Don’t let oppressive laws stop you from putting whatever you’d like in your ass!”

  “What the fick are you going on about?” Hiccup shouts. Ryuk pegs another imp, but is now keen to hear FeeTwix finish his adult-themed ad read.

  “All I’m saying is everything is somebody’s something, if you get my drift! And right now on EBAYmazon, all adult novelty toys are a whopping twenty percent off with the promo code #FeeTwixRox! Get it delivered by drone in an unmarked package and have some fun with your sigother! Hell, go at it alone if you have to, but do not let anyone tell you how to live your sex life!”

  “Give me a fickin’ break!” Hiccup shouts.

  FeeTwix tosses his slice bang away, equips a mirror, and points to it, his eyes as black as the holes that will soon be filled by discounted sex toys. “You do you,” he says in all seriousness, and with that, a baseball cap appears on the Swedish huckster’s head. Not seconds later, a baseball bat materializes in his hands, and after a practice swing, he gets to Babe Ruthing the imps that have surrounded him.

  Hiccup rolls his eyes, slams another healing potion, uses the bottle to beat in the face of an imp that has jumped onto his back, and after he’s thrown the imp off, Zaena gives it the Cuisinart treatment.

  “That was a strange advertisement!” she calls over to FeeTwix.

  He laughs like a madman. “All in a day’s work, babe! Now get out there, people, and get your jollies!”

  Ryuk goes for his slingshot and zings one of his new gravity marbles at an imp descending from a hole up top. Suddenly, the imp’s body is flung backwards and it sticks to the ceiling.

  Interesting. He pings another one dancing around Hiccup and the imp flies to the side wall, taking out a couple of dancing devils like they’re pinballs.

  “Fick yeah, Marbles!” Propelled by a blistering blast of barbecue afterthought, Hiccup springs forward and knocks the socks off a hopping imp.

  -144 HP! Critical hit!

  Ryuk recalls the skill he learned leveling up in Port of Protla and jams a molten marble in his mouth.

  Spit fire!

  He sprays an incoming troupe of little winged fuckers and accidently singes Hiccup in the process.

  “Yeeeoooooy!” The goblin hightails it, trying to bat out the fire raging on his lower back that is now being fueled by his near limitless stream of natural gas. The fire spreads, and as soon as he gets his wits about him, he drops to the ground and starts rolling.

  “I’ve got you, Hiccup!” His recently equipped baseball cap now on backwards, FeeTwix yanks a fire extinguisher from his list and hoses the goblin off. It doesn’t take much longer for the Mitherfickers and the big bad wolf to clean up what’s left of the imps.

  As the battle finishes, and Zaena starts moving all the dead imps to one side of the chamber, Hiccup equips Frank’s Toe Knife and marches right over to Ryuk.

  “Look … ” he says, tears in his eyes as he points his knife at Ryuk. “Look what you did to my fickin’ hair!”

  Sure enough, the goblin’s pink topknot has been singed to a nearly nonexistent state. It’s still there, but the parts that are visible are now black. “Fix it, goddammit!”

  “Um … ?” Ryuk looks to FeeTwix, whose black eyes are taking in all the goblin action. From there he looks to Wolf, who has started gnawing on one of the imps’ legs, and from there to Zaena, who is still, oddly enough, stacking bodies. “You want me to shoot you with a marble?”

  “No, I want you to stick a marble up my ass.”

  Ryuk gives him an uncertain look.

  “Yes, dammit, shoot me! Do your little wish spell thing and get my fickin’ hair back. I swear to the Empress’ liquid-gold-producing mammaries that if you have somehow ficked up my hair, I’m going to make my grievances known, bigly.”

  FeeTwix equips a towel and uses it to wipe some of the black imp blood off his body. “You already air your grievances bigly. I can let you borrow my hat.”

  He tosses the hat over at Hiccup and the goblin kicks it. “Fick no!”

  “Babe, you want?”

  Zaena takes the towel, spot wipes her armor, and finishes up on her blades. Once she’s done, she hands it back to FeeTwix and the towel disappears.

  “Whatever, Twixy. Marbles, I’m warning you … you’d better not fick this up!” Hiccup turns, his ass now facing Ryuk. “Do it. Peg me.”

  FeeTwix cracks up again. “This will be good!”

  “Um … ”

  “Less umming and more shooting, Marbles.”

  “I’m just trying to think of what I should say.”

  “How about ‘repair hair?’” Hiccup lifts his right hip slightly and lets out a squeaker. “Fick, that barbeque has come back to haunt me. You see me launch myself into the air earlier propelled solely by flatulence?” he asks over his shoulder. “Not gonna lie, that was cool as fick.”

  Damn goblin.

  Ryuk pouches a clear marble, pulls back on his slingshot, takes a few big steps back, and fires it at Hiccup’s lower back. “Repair hair!”

  “Yooooy!” Hiccup hops into the air, his hands on his lower back. “That fickin’ hurt!” He immediately pats his head. “What … what the fick!?” he asks as what’s left of his topknot disappears and two side curls take shape, curling even more as they extend in length. They’re yellow, and once they’re done growing, they hang well past the goblin’s double chin.

  “Payot!” FeeTwix cracks up. “How orthodox of you, Hiccup!”

  “Twick you, Fixy! Fick, you know what I mean!” The panicked goblin looks at Wolf, who has sat down on his haunches and is watching him with his head twisted to the right. “You too, Scooby!”

  Scooby? Ryuk thinks.

  Sometimes it seems like Hiccup has taken bits and pieces from what he assumes is the world up there and put them into usage having little or no knowledge of what the word means, how it is used, or who uses it. Then again, Ryuk has no idea what “scooby” means either. “I’ll try again.”

  “Fick yes you will!” Hiccup growls. He tightens his grip around his toe knife. “You’d better not fick this up, Marbles.”

  Ryuk places another clear marble in the slingshot, pulls back and … “Hey, what kind of hair do you actually want?” he asks, lowering his weapon.

  Hiccup’s about to mouth off at him, but then he realizes the question is actually something he needs to consider.

  “Same style as before?”

  “Give him a faux hawk,” Zaena laughs. “A real douchey looking one.”

  “Pfft, everyone knows faux hawks are cool,” Hiccup replies. “I’d be so lucky for Marbles here to give me one – talk about pootie tiz-ang out the wazoo next time I hit the club scene in Jatla – but he’s an amateur and it’s amateur hour so I’ll take what I can get. Same as before.”

  “So a dollop of pink hair?” Ryuk asks.

  “Did I stutter?” Hiccup nods and raises his nose. “An
d for the record, Marbles, ‘dollop’ is the pooftiest word you’ve said all day.”

  “Fine,” he says under his breath. “Pink hair!” Annoyed with the goblin, Ryuk pulls back as far as he can and zings the marble right at the back of his head.

  A Simple Request!

  Hiccup screams like a hairy man getting a Brazilian wax as long, lustrous pink locks sprout out of the back of his head and thicken. By the time his hair is done growing, and the goblin is done bitching, he has a fabulous full head of pink hair which hangs well past his shoulders.

  By this point, Zaena is rolling on the ground laughing, FeeTwix can barely stand he’s laughing so hard, and Ryuk is laughing harder than he’s laughed in weeks. Even Wolf has joined in; he now gives the goblin the queerest look he can muster.

  “It was supposed to be a fickin’ dollop!”

  “You told me that word was … how did put it?” Ryuk asks.

  “Pooftiest,” FeeTwix says, still trying to stop laughing. “Don’t worry, Hiccup, we’ll get your hair fixed right up.” The Swede grabs a pair of clippers from his inventory list. “If it’s a topknot you want, it’s a topknot you’ll get!”

  Chapter 20: Mark of the Beast

  “Fickery, why do we always get caught up in fickery?” Hiccup laments as they continue down a narrow passage lit by torches. FeeTwix has given him what he wants – a topknot – and he’s even shaved a lightning bolt on the side of his head, just to give the goblin a little more flare than a goblin with pink hair and a mechanical hand could possibly need.

  “Relax, Hiccup, I think we’re a pretty good group to be in, am I right, guys?”

  “Yes,” Ryuk says.

  “Fick me, Marbles, you have about as much personality as a blow-up doll, and those are at least useful. I’m not one to get Goblinholm’s Syndrome like Twixy over here. I’m a free thinker, a big league type of guy.”

  Zaena chuckles. “Play nice, Hiccup. You’d be an ugly, bald goblin without Ryuk and you’d look like a poofter, as you say, if you had kept your pink hair long. Now you’re just an ugly goblin.”